Last summer, when the record heat scorched Chicagoland, Larry Lilja, Northwestern’s strength and conditioning coach, placed a sign bearing the words “Rose Bowl” atop “Mt. Trashmore” in south Evanston.
Saturday, the Wildcats’ Brian Kardos, 6-foot-5-inch, 285-pound junior offensive tackle from Springfield, recalled running the hill (nicknamed because it occupies land that was once a garbage dump) in the heat and then seeing the sign.
When, Kardos was asked, did he start to believe that Northwestern could go to the Rose Bowl?
“I think, for me, it was the day I saw that sign on Mt. Trashmore,” Kardos said. “The guys were there. We ran up that hill through every kind of adversity.
“That moment right there, I knew there was something special about these guys. Everybody was collapsing at the top of the hill, and everybody pulled up one another from a mixture of dirt and sweat and heat. I thought then we could succeed. Yes, I thought Rose Bowl . . .”
Now the rest of the sporting world also is a believer. The Wildcats, the formerly lowly Northwestern Wildcats, are going to the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 in Pasadena, Calif, where they will meet Pac 10 champion Southern Cal.
In this most improbable season, Northwestern got there in an improbable way. Several of the players and coaches watched together as heavy favorite Ohio State was upset 31-23 at Michigan on Saturday.
The defeat handed the Wildcats, which had finished the season Nov. 18, the ultimate payout: their first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1949, which was their only previous visit, and their first Big Ten title since 1936.
On the stage of the auditorium was a board listing coach Gary Barnett’s five goals for his 1995 team. Reading from bottom to top, Nos. 1 through 4 were: 1. Great attitude and chemistry; 2. Relentless team; 3. Winning season; 4. Bowl game.
No. 5, high atop the chart and 10 feet above Barnett, who was on the auditorium floor, was “Rose Bowl.”
“Can you reach up to No. 5?” somebody asked Barnett.
“I can fly up to it,” Barnett answered.
At the beginning of the season, such a flight seemed as unlikely as an ostrich’s soaring through the air.
This was a school that had not had a winning season since 1971.
As recently as 1989, the Wildcats went 0-11. In the early 1980s, they compiled a record 34-game losing streak. They were the laughingstocks of college football.
But no more. Now Northwestern joins the 1980 gold-medal U.S. Olympic hockey team and baseball’s 1969 Miracle New York Mets as one of sports’ great underdogs-to-champions stories.
More Top Picks Cosori Smart Air Fryer Oven
Kardos, a score of his teammates, coaches, families, and media representatives gathered Saturday to watch the Ohio State-Michigan game on a wide TV screen in the auditorium in the Nicholet Football Facility just north of Dyche Stadium. Ordinarily, the Wildcats use the auditorium for team meetings to map and discuss important strategy sessions before big games. Saturday a more festive–and helpless–feeling prevailed.
“We’re kind of letting our hair down,” Kardos said. “Usually, we’re very businesslike. But we have no control over this.”
They cheered as Michigan ripped through the Buckeyes. Then as the game ended, roses were passed around the room.
Kardos, clutching a rose, said, “I can’t believe I’m here holding roses.”
At Dyche Stadium, a spontaneous purple flag parade broke out moments after the Buckeyes’ loss.
As news of the bowl berth spread, traffic along Central Street in Evanston swelled, as students and alumni climbed into mini-vans, sports cars and sedans strewn with purple-and-white Northwestern flags. They cruised, pumped their horns, shouted from their car windows; the racket could be heard for blocks.
And why not? The last time the Wildcats got this far, Harry Truman was in the White House.
The Wildcats’ climb to the top of the Big Ten heap struck a chord with NU students past and present.
Watching the Ohio State game from The Huddle sports bar in Evanston, Class of 1981 alumnae Sheryl Long and Sue Anderson recalled the days when they would drown their sporting sorrows in pizza and beer.
They didn’t have that problem Saturday afternoon. When time ran out on Ohio State, managers at The Huddle poured drinks on the house. Said Anderson: “Our SAT scores are higher, and now we’re winning too.”
Now, the only dilemma for everyone on the bandwagon is how to get Rose Bowl tickets–a difficult task, at best.
Most of the tickets to Pasadena will be parceled out among Rose Bowl committee members and the athletic departments and alumni associations of Northwestern and USC. After that, a remaining few tickets will go on sale to the general student population.
Before Ohio State’s loss, Northwestern’s alumni association had priced tour packages from $1,100 to $1,700, depending on where the Wildcats were headed.
With the destination Pasadena, NU fans quickly were dogging ticket brokers, who were quoting preliminary prices of $350 to $500 for less-than-cushy end zone seats.
Surprisingly, some ticket brokers were not anticipating a great demand for Rose Bowl tickets.
“Northwestern just doesn’t have a super-big following yet,” said Max Waisvisz, owner of Gold Coast Tickets in Chicago. “I’m happy for them that they’re going, but I bet more tickets would sell if it was Ohio State.”
Many fans became aware of Barnett’s upstart Wildcats when they upset huge favorite Notre Dame 17-15 in the season opener. After their only loss of the season, 30-28 to Miami of Ohio, they won their last nine games. They sprang another huge upset, beating 16-point favorite Michigan 19-13. Altogether the Cats compiled a 6-0 record as underdogs. Favored victims were Notre Dame, Air Force, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Penn State.
But, like Kardos, most of the Cats suspected long before the opener at Notre Dame that this team might be special. Their off-season work ethic was a major reason. More than 50 players worked out, lifted weights and ran up Mt. Trashmore and on the bench last summer. The whole squad engaged in strength and conditioning work last winter.
Linebacker Geoff Shein, a fifth-year senior and former Deerfield High School star, explained Saturday that he had a feeling about the Rose Bowl even before the volunteer summer workouts.
“I conceptualized the Rose Bowl during our winter conditioning work, and I visualized it about midway through the Big Ten season, when we knew what kind of team we had,” Shein said.
“The whole atmosphere during winter conditioning was one of Rose Bowl, nothing less,” Shein said. “I’ve been around here a long time. We’d never worked so closely or thought more of one another. We really wanted the Rose Bowl. I knew it would take more than a couple of good teams to knock us off.”