On the first day of 2013, Sean Frazier was a high-ranking member of the Wisconsin athletic department when he came upon a sight that remains with him to this day.
“I turned on the TV and saw a sold-out Orange Bowl,” Frazier said. “All that red and black.”
Frazier left the Badgers seven months later to become Northern Illinois athletic director, but “activating” the energy and excitement that season brought out of the Huskies’ considerable Chicago-area alumni base continues to be a significant challenge.
The product on the field remains terrific — NIU opens camp this weekend in DeKalb with an eye toward a seventh straight appearance in the Mid-American Conference championship game — but any hope of turning that success into major-conference dollars is held back by an alumni base that has largely returned to lethargy.
As the ever-changing landscape of college sports prepares for another round of dominoes with last week’s announcement that the Big 12 wants to add two to four teams, it’s increasingly clear Chicagoland is both a blessing and a curse to NIU.
The media market would be extremely attractive to the Big 12 or American Athletic Conference, which could lose teams to the Big 12.
But unlike other programs that have raised their profiles in recent years — Boise State, TCU and Louisville are three examples Frazier highlighted in an 18-minute video posted on YouTube in October — NIU struggles for attention and alumni dollars in a market that is all about professional sports.
The facilities have been upgraded and the plan, which included hiring Frazier, is in place, but as long as average attendance remains in the neighborhood of 14,000, playing in a major conference isn’t going to happen.
“Right now is our time,” Frazier said Monday at the Huskies’ Chicago media day at U.S. Cellular Field. “I know it is from my experience in the Big Ten. For us, it is about getting our alumni excited. There are a lot of alumni of other institutions who don’t have this momentum or opportunity.
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“We have 145,000 alumni in the Chicago area. I don’t want them to come back 20, 30 years from now and say, ‘We had an opportunity and we blew it because we didn’t rally behind this thing.’ That is where my focus is because I believe in our people, and once we activate this thing, look out.”
Frazier was joined by coach Rod Carey and several players at the Cell, where the Huskies will take on MAC rival Toledo on Nov. 9 in the first football game at the home of the White Sox.
From Carey’s perspective, life in the MAC is just fine, and any talk of finding a new home is “above my pay grade.”
“It certainly is part of the landscape we live in,” he said. “It is going to be out there in college football whether you like it or not. The thing about our conference is sustainability. It hasn’t changed in forever.”
Change, of course, is a constant in college sports, and Frazier acknowledged he was hired in 2013 to “move the agenda.”
“There is no such thing as standing still,” he said. “You’re moving forward or you’re moving backward.”
A leap to the Big 12 is certainly not imminent, and Frazier did not sound like a move to the AAC, should it have an opening, was high on his agenda. He said he has not engaged in even an informal conversation with anyone from the AAC.
“Right now, we are evaluating everything NIU,” Frazier said. “Other conferences having conversations, all that kind of stuff … we are loyal to the MAC. The MAC has been good to us. We’ve been good to the MAC.
“What we have to do is make sure we do the things internally to keep us above the fray so when other things materialize … I just have to make sure I’m looking at a two-, three-, five-, 10-year decision and not a quick fix.
“You never know what the future is going to look like, but I know one thing: We will be ready.”
Mike Helfgot is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.