Oct. 7, 2005
Big Ten/Pac-10 Challenge
We hosted the Second Annual Big Ten/Pac-10 Challenge in men's golf earlier this week at the Glen Club in Glenview. The tournament featured seven teams from each conference, including some of the best collegiate golf teams and student-athletes in the country. Our men's team had a strong, balanced performance in winning the team championship, edging Minnesota by three strokes. Junior David Merkow won the first individual championship of his collegiate career, beating defending NCAA champion James Lepp by one stroke. He showed great composure in birdying three of the last four holes.
Head coach Pat Goss deserves special credit for his role in establishing the Challenge. Pat saw a need for a tournament to showcase collegiate golf and worked closely with Josh Lesnick from Kemper Sports Management. The Challenge will rotate annually between the Glen Club, Bandon Dunes (the No. 1-ranked golf course in the country) and Pacific Dunes, three courses operated by Kemper. Congratulations to Pat and his team for a great performance.
Rose Bowl Reunion
This season marks the 10th anniversary of our 1995 football season. The 1995 team was certainly one of the best in Northwestern history, and captured the imagination of the nation by making an incredible run to the Big Ten Championship and a Rose Bowl berth. We will honor both the 1995 and 1996 teams during a reunion this weekend. Activities include a Friday night dinner at the Hotel Orrington, introduction of all returning players at halftime (the players will be available to sign autographs at the LaSalle Bank Touchdown Terrace in the north end zone following introductions), and a reception in the N Club following the game. Seventy-two of the players are returning for the Reunion. We are all looking forward to welcoming these former players back and thanking them for all they did for Northwestern. Let's hope that some of their magic rubs off on our current players this weekend!
Bye Week
With an odd number of schools in the Big Ten, every school has an open date during the conference schedule. Where the byes fall for the schools has recently become an issue in football scheduling within the conference. In studying recent conference schedules, we noted that Northwestern had an inordinate number of games against teams with a bye week the previous week (thus giving these teams two weeks to prepare for us). We raised this issue at the conference level, and the future schedules will be adjusted to equalize this situation. This year I think the bye comes at a good time for us. We are coming off a tough, last-minute loss to Penn State, and have had a number of injured players. A bye is not always a good thing for a team - if a team is on a roll and playing with confidence, a bye can sometimes stop a team's momentum. Also, byes that fall at the end of the season provide little benefit to teams. With the NCAA allowing 12 games in the future, bye weeks will become a thing of the past, as most schools will play their extra game in the bye week.