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Speaker 0 00:00:00 Northwestern may not be known as a sports school, but that doesn't stop many students from becoming huge Wildcat fans. But before you get into any new sports, there are a few things you should know about. I spoke with editors at several sports publications here on campus to get the full crash course on Northwestern sports for any new Wildcat diehard.
Speaker 1 00:00:20 Well, welcome all. Thank you for being here. Um, just to start us off, uh, can each of you introduce yourself with your name your year and what position you hold at a which publication?
Speaker 2 00:00:33 I'm Patrick Andrews. I'm a junior and I'm supported today. Later with Western.
Speaker 3 00:00:38 Yeah. My name is John Volk. I am also a junior. I am one of the two sports directors at WMUR sports.
Speaker 4 00:00:45 Uh, I'm Daniel Olinger. I'm a junior and I'm one of the three editors and chief of insight. And you,
Speaker 5 00:00:50 My name is coop daily. I'm a junior. I am the sports editor at north by Northwestern, and I'm also the grinder of the Northwestern university, Wildcat marching.
Speaker 1 00:00:59 First up, I figured the, uh, most essential part of the college sports fan experience has to be the, uh, chance and traditions. So going around again, just to hear from everyone, what would be your go-to must know, tradition or chant, uh, for any new Northwestern fan?
Speaker 4 00:01:18 I mean, probably the easiest one is the move, the chains chant, like after each first down and a football game. That's one that I think they specifically teach you at, like during Wildcat. Low-income when you're like your first week here as a freshmen. So you have to just be ready to like move your arms, do the whole symbol classes. And the point is just a very basic one that it always happens.
Speaker 3 00:01:39 Well. I mean, I'll keep it with football is and what do we call it? The growl. It's something like that when exactly the other team gets to third down, everybody's got to shape up their hands, right hand into a claw, hold that up in the sky and just make the most distorted, um, attempt to like a wild cat growl, like ger it's, it's really something to behold.
Speaker 2 00:02:07 If we make a point to actually learn the lyrics to the fight song, because that's definitely something you should make an effort to learn. And the prep, when I came back for winter break and all my friends made fun of me knowing the stone line, the lyrics of Ohio state's fight song or not yet. So avoid that at all costs.
Speaker 5 00:02:35 I'm a big fan at the basketball games. There's chicken sandwich that gets chanted for opposing free-throws just to have the, uh, other team try to miss and get the entire student section Chick-fil-A. That's all. It's just a really,
Speaker 1 00:02:46 Uh, another big thing for people to learn about is, uh, is Northwestern's conference. So Northwestern plays in the big 10. We're the only private school in the conference. And we happened to bump up against some pretty big name sports schools. So what would you all say Northwestern's niche is in the big 10. What, what role do we feel? Where do we fit?
Speaker 2 00:03:06 We fill the role of not belonging here. This is the room where you feel like. So we have, oh, I was staying in the unit 60,000, a hundred grids where I can walk the length of this campus in 20 minutes. I think both of us say in Michigan, you would have to take a bus. We are geographically small population. We are smaller. My fan base are some, our smallness is somewhat what makes us, so you're definitely the first thing you get a sense of when you come here is how small the fan bases and you get used to very quickly being guests in your own house.
Speaker 4 00:03:46 I would say like, if you're specifically thinking about how the teams themselves play like women's basketball, especially over the last recent years, established a really strong reputation of the conference, winning it two years ago, historically the men's basketball program is not great. So, uh, Mo most teams kind of rightfully think they come at roll into Evanston thinking they're going to get a win when they play the men's basketball team and the football team. It was the same thing for awhile. Whereas like in recent history, even though the slat past year, wasn't great, the Northwestern has emerged as a solid team and more like a team that a lot of the usual conference contenders are always a little bit afraid of it. You go on Twitter. Like the week of Wisconsin, Northwestern game is just filled with Wisconsin fans dreading like a 1917 loss to Northwestern. Cause they've seen it happen over and over again at the worst possible time.
Speaker 5 00:04:33 I would say we're like the quirky little brother that, uh, has a very like we're part of the family. And then anyone messing with us doesn't need draws the ire up the big 10, but at the same time, it's just, we are kind of not stepped upon. I want to say, but kind of like overlooked on a good occasion. And the other thing that they've, uh, Northwestern really tries to extenuate, uh, sometimes to a fatal margin is that we're not just, we're not a state school. We're a Chicago's big 10 team, um, to the point where, um, if Illinois beats us, they try to take that back from us. But that's, uh, something different. We're, uh, we represent Chicago, we represent the, uh, smaller, we represent the little guy. We represent everything. And it's pretty fun being David when you're taking on Goliath, especially knowing who wins half the time.
Speaker 3 00:05:19 Yeah. I think that underdog mentality aspect is, is really important. Whenever, whenever there's a good Northwestern team, it's always going to be not the most athletic players, not the most physically gifted players, it's going to be the really smart players and the players that are gonna, you know, grind put in the work day after day after day, um, seek out these unprobable victories, but the ones that everybody's going to root for,
Speaker 1 00:05:44 I want to hear, and I'm putting y'all on the spot. Uh, your favorite Northwestern meme or stereotype of the sports teams themselves, the fans, you know, anything it's it's anything
Speaker 3 00:05:56 Goes because I'm going to take the one that I'm sure popped into all three of your minds is from that NCAA tournament run for the men's team back in 2017, um, the, the most upset child you will ever see hands on his head crying because his Northwestern Wildcats lost. I think that sums up a lot of the school's athletic history.
Speaker 5 00:06:18 Also from that run. I there's the streaker, um, who, I don't think, I'm not sure if she's been back to a game since that whole thing happened, but there was a Northwestern fan who during basketball games would shriek so loud and at such a high frequency, it would be picked up by every microphone in the arena. And it was really, really interesting to see people take free throws and hearing that go across the field. But then they were like, yeah, no, you can't do
Speaker 4 00:06:41 So there was a man named Nick McCall. He's no longer here, but we were freshmen, uh, back in 2019 and the team was not good. A lot of people pointed to how bad the offense was. And a lot of it was at the fault of the 12 year offensive coordinator, Mick McCall, who was eventually fired after that season. But now you any head coaching search comes up. Any team says, Hey, they're looking for a new head coach. You can expect our account in plenty of other Northwestern counts, but you know that the other team is probably looking to hire Mick McCall, former Northwestern offensive coordinator.
Speaker 2 00:07:16 We can all it that Alex is the strength. Coach is a character. If ESPN or Fox wanted once in easy, uh, if they want a phone in an hour on the Saturday morning, they'll just a pan and a pan to rubber, Northwestern, and spying and say, wow, Alex panels inspired on
Speaker 1 00:07:34 My final question for everyone here today is if you could give one brief piece of advice to any new Northwestern fan, what would you do?
Speaker 2 00:07:45 I would say, learn to cope with defeat. You need to learn what you're getting into. It's rewarding. It's rewarding start working right there.
Speaker 4 00:08:00 I can have a similar idea of Patrick I'll phrase it different in terms of just calm down, like Northwestern, going to lose games, especially in probably to the sports, to be watching a lot of men's basketball and football. You'll watch them lose a lot of games. And some people have plenty of normal reaction to this. Others are like freaking on trying to figure out why they lost to Ohio state. And it's like, why did they lose to Ohio state? Because, because the other team is better. Like sometimes that's the very simple explanation. You don't need to like try and develop main character syndrome here at Northwestern as a Northwestern sports fan. Like it's okay.
Speaker 5 00:08:36 Uh, shameless plug joined the band, uh, but a non shameless, I would say, um, just enjoy the ride. I think it's like just come to the games and have a good time. I mean, half the time wild, side's probably given out some free shirt. Um, chances are the student section's going to chance something completely insane and out of out-of-pocket, um, you're going to have a really fun
Speaker 3 00:08:54 Time. Just come, enjoy the ride. Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll probably just give the most concrete, like go do this. Um, is support the women's teams, field hockey, national champions. Women's lacrosse won five straight one, two more. This century went to the final four last year, softball just the other day. Walk off home, run against number three, UCLA. You know, when, when you're starting to pull your hair out over football and men's basketball. Remember, um, there are a lot of other great, great athletes on this campus too.
Speaker 1 00:09:29 All right. Thank you all so much for, uh, for coming out and talking with me. Um, I think, uh, I think we have well-prepared any new Northwestern students, uh, for the ride that they're about to endure.
Speaker 3 00:09:42 Oh yeah. Thanks Alex. You guys for Chicago's big 10 team. This is Alex Harrison, WBUR news.
