July 23, 2004
Otto Graham Wildcat Honor Roll
I'm pleased to announce that we will unveil the Otto Graham Wildcat Honor Roll in Ryan Field at our Sept. 11 home opener against Arizona State. One of the things that struck me last year about Ryan Field was that there is nothing in the stadium that provides a sense of the tradition or history of Northwestern football. When Otto Graham passed away last winter, we wanted to do something to memorialize all that Otto did for Northwestern and our athletic program, as well as for football generally. As we discussed different options, the Honor Roll had the most appeal because it will be so visible and help our football program, as well as serve as a fitting tribute to Otto. The Honor Roll will be located on the upper deck's facade and will list all our All-Americans, Big Ten championship teams and bowl appearances. The signage is being produced by Ze Design, the same company that provided the signage and graphics in the lobby and corridors of Welsh-Ryan Arena. We're very excited about this improvement to Ryan Field.
New Senior Staff Members
We've been busy the last few weeks filling two key staff positions. After a full national search, I promoted Chris Boyer to our associate athletic director for external affairs position. Chris has done a great job for us for the last three years as assistant athletic director for marketing. We had many strong candidates for the position, but Chris rose to the top because of his tremendous energy and enthusiasm for Northwestern, as well as the fact that he knows Northwestern so well and is highly respected in the Department and on campus. Searches with internal candidates always present delicate situations, but Chris handled the entire process very well. When you have an employee that is doing a great job, it is nice to be able to promote him or her, as it sends a strong message to other employees that good work will be rewarded.
I also recently hired Noreen Morris as associate athletic director for intercollegiate services and senior women's administrator. Noreen has worked for the last eight years at Conference USA in Chicago. Interestingly, due to membership changes as part of the conference realignment, Conference USA just moved its offices to Dallas (with DePaul and Marquette leaving Conference USA, Memphis would have been the closest school to Chicago). Fortunately, our position opened up before Noreen got too settled in Dallas, and she's excited about being able to stay in the Chicago area. She is a former Division I athlete and coach (she played and coached soccer at Cornell), and has tremendous administrative experience from her work at the University of Connecticut and Conference USA. Noreen will start August 4.
Olympic Trials
Eight current or former Northwestern swimmers competed in the U.S. Olympic trials in Long Beach, California earlier this month. Although none of the swimmers will be swimming in Athens, it is a real tribute to both of our swim teams to have this many student-athletes competing at the highest level. Congratulations to coaches Bob Groseth and Jimmy Tierney, and to Brian Davis, Tony Swanson, Matt Grevers, Kellan O' Connor, Mark Hamming, Louis Torres, Vicky West and Michelle Oeser.
Single-Game Tickets
I had a nice surprise when I arrived for work on Monday morning. Tickets for single games went on sale for the first time Monday, and people were camped out waiting in line for tickets. Most of the people were Ohio State fans, but it was still good to see so much excitement in front of our ticket office. One of the big changes that we instituted this year is to offer end zone seats at 50% of the cost of normal tickets (end zone tickets are $15 for nonconference games and $20 for Big Ten games). There are no bad seats in Ryan Field, and this change will help make coming to our games more affordable for families.
Capital Projects
Summer is the best time of year to complete work on capital projects, since the weather is good and the teams aren't in season. Work continues steadily on our biggest project, the Anderson/Burton facility. You can follow the progress of this project on our web site. The scheduled completion date is April 2005. We are close to finishing work on the installation of a new Astroturf surface on our field hockey field. This new surface will be a great help to our field hockey team, and we increased the size of the field so that women's lacrosse can also use the field. We continue to raise money for installation of a new artificial surface field on the lighted football practice field. We hope to have the funding in place to proceed with the installation of the field next spring or summer.