Winning Isn’t the End All

You wonder how a school that produced Adlai Stevenson, Saul Bellow, Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens and seemingly half of America’s journalists could become so tone deaf.

You wonder how it became that Northwestern, a private institution so academically inclined it talked for years about de-emphasizing sports and joining the Ivy League, could find itself in the fix it’s in--because of sports.

From Pasadena to pass the buck, from debate champs to depositions, from cuddly to ... culpable?

It is not a stretch to label the five years since Northwestern’s incredible Rose Bowl run, “Innocence Lost.”

In his autobiography, “High Hopes,” former coach Gary Barnett recounts the moment life was altered in 1995.

“From the minute Michigan beat Ohio State to leave us undisputed Big Ten champion and launch us into the Rose Bowl, our world spun out of control.”

It’s still spinning, three years after Barnett left to coach Colorado.

Since Barnett delivered his promise to lead “the Purple to Pasadena” for the first time since 1949, the tenor at Northwestern has changed.

In the years since the bus dropped those wide-eyed kids off on Hollywood Boulevard, and Barnett presented “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno with that giant chin strap, and thespian Chuck Heston parted a Purple sea at Universal Studios, Northwestern has become just another program under scrutiny.

Welcome to the club.Take a seat next to Alabama.

Who could have imagined in 1981 the words “Northwestern” and “scandal” being linked on something called a “Google” Internet search.

Yet, since the Rose Bowl, Northwestern has been sullied by a point-shaving scandal that involved the basketball and football programs.

But all pales to the taint trail Northwestern has left since Aug. 3, when senior safety Rashidi Wheeler died in a “voluntary” football workout.

There has been a misconception that the Wheeler tragedy has garnered more national publicity than the conditioning deaths of Florida and Florida State players because Northwestern is held to a higher standard than those so-called football factories.

Nonsense.

Since 1995, Northwestern has won or shared three Big Ten football titles and is favored by many to win a fourth this season.

Since 1995, Northwestern has won more conference titles than Oklahoma and Texas.

Truth is, Northwestern got a taste of success, and liked it. Northwestern is a football factory.

Since 1995, the school has spent $30 million to renovate the football stadium--not to anyone’s overriding disapproval.

Graduates of the school’s well-regarded journalism school happily mugged for a group picture in the sun-splashed backdrop of that 1996 Rose Bowl week.

Fame is never free, though, and if you believe the foundation of big-time intercollegiate athletes is corrupt, any foray toward the top is bound to lead to trouble.

Maybe in its pursuit, Northwestern did what plenty of big-shots do to get there: cut corners.

Putting aside the merits of the Wheeler family’s lawsuit against the university, it is disappointing to think Northwestern could fall so fool-in-love completely.

You wonder: Was it arrogance or stupidity that produced a video recording of the Aug. 3 practice?

If it’s the latter, we ask how a school said to be so smart could be so dumb.

Wheeler collapsed during a “voluntary” workout. NCAA rules prohibit pre-camp conditioning to be recorded for the purposes of review.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Wheeler family spokesman, as usual spoke in hyperbolic sing-song when he deemed the practice “illegal.”

Wrong.

Double murder, as Wheeler family counsel Johnnie Cochran could tell you, is illegal.

NCAA rules, many of which make no sense, are not laws.

Many coaches at victory-conscious powerhouses make the distinction between bending and breaking rules.

Example: tweaking a rule is contacting a recruit a day before the NCAA allows.

Breaking the rule is handing a recruit $100,000 in a FedEx package.

Northwestern Coach Randy Walker, who was not present at the Aug. 3 workout, maintains the practice fell within the guidelines.

The evidence so far suggests otherwise.

Even if true, it probably would not constitute a major violation, while it is extremely likely dozens of Division I-A programs competing for conference titles have committed similar acts.

In the South, getting dinged on a practice rap would be considered a traffic ticket.

The more disturbing visual is how cavalierly Northwestern staffers seemed to be monitoring a practice they weren’t supposed to be monitoring, as if it was standard operating procedure.

Not very Ivy League-like.

This practice poach might not have been a big deal--except that Rashidi Wheeler collapsed and died.

You never know what arbitrary event is going to blow your cover.

These are turbulent times for Northwestern, and we don’t soon see the end of it.

The student-athlete graduation rates are still top drawer--90% from 1994-2000--but that is not the topic on the table.

You wonder if waking up the echoes after years of blissful slumber was worth three bowl loses: Rose, Citrus, Alamo.

The University of Chicago, once coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg, dropped football in 1939 and lived academically ever after.

Northwestern went for the bigger catch but the thrill, like Barnett, is gone.

As Chicago Cub fans will one century discover, the joke is over when you are no longer lovable losers.

Northwestern once posted 49 consecutive defeats.

It went 47 years between Rose Bowl appearances. It totaled 46 wins between 1971-95. Northwestern fans fondly refer to this as the “Tranquil Period.”

You wonder what some folks in Evanston might give now to turn back the clock.