Constable: For Wildcats, the 'N' no longer stands for 'Never'
The roar erupts Sunday from more than 1,000 fans watching CBS's “The Selection Show” on the video screens at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston as the Northwestern Wildcats are announced as a No. 8 seed in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament. NU players jump off their seats, many recording the historic moment on their cellphones. The scene is a perennial event at basketball power schools such as Kansas or Duke, but not at Northwestern.
For the first time since the NCAA basketball tournament began in 1939 (ironically at Patten Gym on the Northwestern campus), the Northwestern Wildcats are going to the Big Dance.
“Now that the Cubs won the World Series, this is the end of the Chicago curses,” proclaims Arlington Heights native Elida Witthoeft, 59, who graduated from Northwestern and worked for the Daily Herald, the Milwaukee Journal, the Chicago Tribune and Minneapolis Star Tribune before spending the past 19 years at ESPN. “Our guys on air are saying it's THE Cinderella story.”
Witthoeft notes that, in her lifetime, the Cubs, Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks and Bears have won championships, Loyola University won an NCAA basketball title, and the basketball teams at DePaul University and the University of Illinois made the Final Four. Even the Northwestern University football team, once a national laughingstock, got to the Rose Bowl in 1996, and later won two bowl games.
“To see our name go up there for the Big Dance is a moment none of us will ever forget,” said Head Coach Chris Collins, who gets a little teary as he brings his wife, son and daughter on the court. “I believed in my heart that today, and many days like this to come, would happen.”
Before Sunday's NCAA announcement, the greatest moment in Northwestern basketball might have been in 1979, when I was one of the young fans in the student section, watching in amazement as our last-place Wildcats upset the Michigan State Spartans. It was the worst defeat of the year for Magic Johnson and his Spartans, who went on to win the NCAA championship.
Pounding our feet in the bleachers, we created a cloud of dust in the old McGaw Hall, which had a dirt floor everywhere except for the basketball court. If you dropped your dorm keys, you had to walk to the end of the bleachers and see if you could find them amid the spilled popcorn on the dirt floor beneath.
McGaw Hall gave way to a modern Welsh-Ryan Arena in 1983. Sunday's event was the last at that arena, which will be updated next year while Northwestern plays its home games at Allstate Arena in Rosemont. The last event turns into a historic first.
“It's my pleasure to welcome you to the first annual Northwestern NCAA selection show,” says optimistic host Dave Eanet, the voice of Northwestern basketball on WGN radio. “This has been a historic season for the Wildcats.”
Setting a school record for wins with 23 to go with 11 losses, Northwestern essentially wrapped up an NCAA bid on March 1 with a thrilling 67-65 victory over eventual Big 10 Tourney champion Michigan. Sophomore center Dererk Pardon scored on a layup at the buzzer after a floor-length inbound pass from senior forward Nathan Taphorn.
While March Madness was merely March malaise for Northwestern, the Wildcats will open this year's tournament with a Thursday game against Vanderbilt University in Salt Lake City.
“When I was a Northwestern theater student, my improv group had a better shot at making the tournament than the basketball team,” says Stephen Colbert, a 1986 NU graduate and host of The Late Show, in a broadcast on the big screen above half-court. “But the drought ends now, I can feel it. This is the year of the underdogs, whether it be the Cubs, 'Moonlight' or reality TV billionaires … Go Wildcats!”
The NU team roster has a showbiz link because reserve sophomore forward Charlie Hall is the son of Northwestern alums Brad Hall and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. NU basketball fans have been more familiar with “Dancing With The Stars” than postseason basketball. Not anymore.
“Now the Big Dance! The N no longer stands for NEVER,” Witthoeft says. “I love that NU has shed its nerd loser status and is now an elite university AND athletically competitive.”
But, unlike the Chicago Cubs, who shrugged off their lovable loser label by winning the World Series, don't expect Northwestern to make it out of the first round of the NCAA tourney. After 77 years without getting an invite to the Big Dance, merely making the tournament is enough of a first step for now.
“To me,” Collins told his players and fans, “today is the beginning of Northwestern basketball.”