Northwestern Wildcats Tickets

About The Northwestern Wildcats

The original campus in Evanston had just one building in 1855, a temporary structure, and it was called “Old College.” The first permanent building called University Hall was built in 1869; and the school built a campus in Chicago in the 20s for the schools of law, medicine and business.

Before 1924, the teams were called “The Purple” and even “The Fighting Methodists,” the latte was an unofficial nickname. The Wildcats name was given to the school by Wallace Abbey, who was a writer for the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1924. The Wildcats are Northwestern’s athletic teams and they compete in the NCAA’s Division I. Northwestern is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference. The school’s mascot is Willie the Wildcat. Their first mascot, though, was a bear cub from the Lincoln Park Zoo named Furpaw. After some bad luck on the field, the team decided it was Furpaw’s fault and didn’t let him on campus after that. Willie came 10 year later, in 1933; he wasn’t actually alive at that point, though. He didn’t come to life until 1947 when members of the Alpha Delta fraternity dressed up as Willie during that year’s Homecoming parade. The football team plays their home games at Ryan Field, which was formerly Dyche Stadium. Their coach is currently former All-American Northwestern linebacker Pat Fitzgerald.

The university’s football team holds the records for Division I-A losses, points allowed and negative point differential (which means the amount by which opponents have outscored them). The school also holds the record for the longest losing streak, with 32 games, in Division I-A. In recent years, though, the team has had some success: they’ve made appearances in the 1996 Rose Bowl, 1997 Citrus Bowl, 2000 Alamo Bowl, 2003 Motor City Bowl and 2005 Sun Bowl. In addition to that, the school also had one of their most memorable football victories in 2004: they upset the normal Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State. Some of the football traditions at Northwestern are the students jingling their car keys before every kickoff and punt. It started as a haughty taunt; their conference rivals usually beat the team and the keys said that while the other school was good at football, they’d be parking Northwestern students’ cars one day. Another tradition is when the team is on defense, Northwestern fans stretch their arms, make claws with their hands and growl.