Northwestern University

anyone?

Northwestern dropped Mens XC and track a long time ago, '88 or '89 maybe.

ask anyone if they know mike musca. mike was the coach when men's track was dropped. he has all the answers you want.

Yeah, they dropped xc and track years ago for budget reasons -- 88 or 89 is probably about right. They added women's xc about 5 or 6 years ago, but no track. I have a daughter who used to run who met the former coach about 5 years ago. She told us that there are some athletes who like the idea of only one season per year rather than being forced to do xc and track to be on scholarship.

"budget reasons" ? that is a great answer.

Is Northwestern the only Big 10 school without any sort of a track program?

Northwestern had a womens xc team in the '88, '89 time frame. I remember that because they had a woman finish 3rd in the District meet one year who didn't get to go to Nationals (Palmquist?). Maybe they dropped it and then brought it back again.

Do they really have xc but no track? That's pretty rare for women in division I, at least for schools with football.

I am aware that many of the women currently on the Northwestern cross country team want a track team and have in fact started a dialogue with the administration about this prospect. Northwestern is the only BigTen school without an official track program, and unfortunately,there are a number of facilities/space, financial, legal, and other setbacks to adding track. This is not to say it isn\'t possible some day. The Santa Clara cross country team was in a similar position and they added an official track team this year. In the least, it seems that the Santa Clara situation should be informative for Northwestern to look at. What can programs in this situation do or what have they done in the past to add a track program?

Rob Gary, the head cross country coach is from Evanston (lived on northwestern's off-campus). How much would it cost to hire Gary, have 5 scholarships, compete in the Big 10 cross country and then just go to a few select indoor/outdoor/cross country races the rest of the year? I agree that a lot of kids don't want to compete all 3 seasons. I bet Gary would love that (along with most other distance coaches). Any chance?

I just visited Northwestern and was absolutely SHOCKED that they don't have track or Men's XC. I looked at the athletics page and found a club "running" team; does anyone have anymore information? Other than the lack of XC/track, I thought northwestern was an absolutely amazing school.

I bet Gary would've done that when under Russ Rogers a couple years ago, but he is now the head honcho at Ohio State!

I struck Vandy, Northwestern and Tulane from my list of potential schools bc of their weak or non-existent mens' programs.

I am aware that Northwestern does not have women's track and field. Does anyone else find that odd given the revenue shared by all Big 10 teams? Each Big 10 team gets an equal cut of football or basketball revenue. So if 6 FB teams play in bowl games, that money is divided up among all Big 10 programs. Same for BB. NW must bring in a hefty paycheck from that revenue sharing agreement. So how can they justify not having a women's track team which would cost them about $100,00 to run (extra pay for coach, more travel money) and additional scholarship money.

thoughts?

Northwestern used to get some of the top state talent in Illinois in the 80's. They even had a track in the stadium. They cut the program for men when the football team was on a streak of never winning games. Possibly because football wasn't bringing in any revenue, other sports (cross country) suffered the consequences. When they improved the stadium, they took out the track.

I think Northwestern, with a good coach, could develop a top Big Ten Cross Country program within 5 years. Who wouldn't want to go to such a top notch university to run, especially if it's free.

I find it odd wrote:

So how can they justify not having a women's track team which would cost them about $100,00 to run (extra pay for coach, more travel money) and additional scholarship money.

thoughts?

$100,000 would barely even be two full scholarships (it is about $50,000 per year at NU). It would cost them far, far more than that figure.

It would cost them about $200,000 just to get to 10 full rides (from where I think they are funded now), plus travel and the fact they have no facility.

They would need to be funded at 18 full rides, just like the rest of the Big 10 or they wouldn't score 25 points in the T&F meets.

They had to add a women's sport about 5 years ago and chose Lacrosse. They are now the dominant Lacrosse program in the nation.

The dropping of the Men's Program was due to a number of somewhat complex issues which all seemed to arise at the same time. When they all came together, the "simplest" answer was to drop the entire program.

good reply. no program has little if anything to do with money issues.

student wrote:

I looked at the athletics page and found a club "running" team; does anyone have anymore information?

The running club is going to be what you make of it. You get lucky and have one or two others who are as dedicated and as fast as you, but be prepared to do a lot of running on your own. I loved the school and had a great overall experience there, but if running is your top priority, you'll have to work to find people to train with.

Northwestern is dominate in lacrosse because of one dedicated coach, something that could happen with xc and/or track.

NU has no track. And they havent had a fully funded NCAA team in 20 years or so. The women's XC team has died a painful death there, and it has been tough to watch the dismal failure. Don't get your hopes up. NU did have some good talent before it was disbanded, but not in the distances. Those days were long gone by the mid- 80's.

Of course with scholarships a XC or track team there can do well, but anyone with scholarships can do well, and still most teams and coaches in the NCAA don't!

Evanston is also more paved, urbanized, and expensive than before, not quite the idylic spot it was 20-35 years ago. Developing distance athletes there would be no slam dunk even for a good coach. It could be done though, but there are only a handful of coaches in the US good enough to regularly make walk-on level talent fast enough to compete at the top NCAA level. There are coaches who can take top tier HS talent and keep it top tier another several years.

But an NU team would not be starting there. And even Badger miles wont fly on pavement. A team in Evanston might have better luck targeting middle distances first.

I believe a club team would be the best chance for eventual success, not the conventional pleading/begging route. The funding for a club team would be by private sponsor, and the goal of the team would be to first get people thinking again about XC and track at NU. If well managed, they'd have a chance. One underdog Wildcat improving enough to run down Wisconsin blue-chippers in one race at say, Drake or Stanford, would be enough to get the whole country talking about NU track.