A wise man once said, “If you believe it, you can achieve it.” That man was R. Kelly on the Space Jam soundtrack, and it was in a song about him flying. Never mind the fact that Kelly has yet to display the ability to fly in public, I take anything said on the Space Jam soundtrack to be canon.
In this crazy, fast-paced world we live in, things change fast. In the blink of an eye, Northwestern went from a team looking destined for a berth in a bowl in Detroit to a team with a huge win over a ranked opponent, and from the periphery of the college football world to the host of College Gameday. Four Loko went from something in glorious, ample supply to something we need to hoard up like there’s some sort of horrible nuclear caffeinated alcoholic apocalypse, and references to NBA Street Vol. 2 went from hilarious to just mildly funny.
At this rate, in a few weeks, NU will have a national championship; prized recruits will be throwing piles of money out of their windows to play at Northwestern; and Pat Fitzgerald will be the head of a new, disturbingly popular religion of which human sacrifice is a major aspect.
In 2010, being a Northwestern football fan is fun. The team is well over .500. You can count on one or two wins over ranked opponents per year. You can go on the internet and read people pretending to be Northwestern’s backup quarterback, and you can read less funny but more creative people pretending to be the starting quarterback’s Achilles tendon.
But there’s still lots of room for improvement. Remember that time that there was a game at Ryan Field where there were more Iowa fans than Northwestern fans? When was the last time a celebrating NU fan burnt a couch in celebration? Why do normal college students know more about something involving living and wages and campaigning than, uh, college football? Where are our priorities?
But I’ve learned something in the past few days, as a pipe dream about having a football game at Wrigley Field that started out as a silly message board idea blossomed into an actual thing with a football field on a baseball field. With Lee Corso likely putting on a Willie the Wildcat costume on Saturday. With people across the city – really, across the nation – paying attention to the Wildcats, a feat previously thought impossible, much like me schtupping Bar Refaeli or anybody in the world teaching that girl in that song how to Dougie.
When Jim Phillips and the NU marketing department got their minds set on having a game in one of the more iconic sites in the nation, they decided to go all out, and it’s now starting to pay off. All year, attendance at Ryan Field has been significantly up.
This game at Wrigley is a legit hot ticket. And those people who are making it a hot ticket will be back – except at Ryan Field.
The Wrigley game is an example of NU setting its mind to changing its place as the school perennially on the fringes of the college sports world. To paraphrase Mr. Kelly, NU’s athletic department believed that they could do this, and then they actually did.
Perhaps bigger changes in how NU is perceived are afoot – although we should chill out before the Pat Fitzgerald-worshipping human sacrifice, if you haven’t done that already.
Deputy Sports Editor Rodger Sherman is a Medill junior. He can be reached at [email protected]
GameDay airs at 9 a.m. ET on ESPNU and from 10 a.m. to noon on ESPN
Check out College GameDay’s website at www.collegegameday.com
Follow College GameDay on Twitter @GameDayFootball.
College GameDay’s new Facebook page is www.facebook.com/collegegameday
