Northwestern University Athletics
Murphy's Mark: On To the White House!
7/11/2005 12:00:00 AM | General
July 11, 2005
Lacrosse to Visit White House
As I write this column, I am about to head to Washington, D.C., with our women's lacrosse team. The team has been invited to the White House to meet President George Bush as part of NCAA Champions Day on July 12. The team will be given a tour of the White House and have a photo taken with the President. Each team presents the President with a gift -- our gift will be a red, white and blue lacrosse stick. Although our lacrosse student athletes are spread out across the country at this time of the year, almost the entire team will be able to attend the event at the White House. This visit is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our student athletes, and a great way to cap off what was a truly remarkable season for our women's lacrosse team.
United States Sports Academy Directors' Cup Rankings
Now that the NCAA baseball tournament is done, the final ranking in the United States Sports Academy Directors' Cup is available. This was formerly known as the Sears Cup, and measures the strength of NCAA schools' overall athletic departments. Each school earns points when their teams qualify for NCAA play, and earn additional points as these teams advance in their respective NCAA tournaments. Led by our women's lacrosse team's NCAA championship, we finished 29th in the Directors' Cup standing, our best finish ever (our previous best was 35th in 1996-97). We also had our best finish within the Big Ten -- we finished sixth among the Big Ten schools. These outstanding rankings are a great tribute to our coaches and student athletes, particularly in light of the fact that we have the smallest athletic department in the Big Ten with only 19 sports.
Anderson Hall
In mid-June, we moved into the new Anderson Hall. This beautiful new facility, which has been under construction for the last 16 months, houses the Ron Burton Academic Advising Center, the Ken Kraft wrestling practice facility and offices for coaches and administrators. The building is located at the north end of Ryan Field, and offers spectacular views of our athletic facilities. This facility will be a tremendous benefit to our coaches, particularly in the recruiting process. I am also excited to have so many of our coaches and administrators together in the same building. This will provide many benefits to our department. You can check out the new building on our web site. I also encourage people to visit the new building when they come to campus. We will hold the official dedication of the new facility the weekend of September 3.
FieldTurf
We are just about to complete the installation of FieldTurf on our lighted football practice field. FieldTurf is an artificial surface that has a mixture of rubber infill and sand. The field looks and plays just like natural grass, and athletes love playing on it (because it is so much softer than previous artificial surfaces) and administrators love it because you don't have to worry about wearing out the field (as you do with natural grass) and there is very little maintenance. The new field will be a tremendous benefit to our football team. Six of the Big Ten teams now have a similar surface on their game fields, so it will help the team prepare for these games. Also, we will be able to use the field at times when a grass field would not be usable. The field also will be a big help to all of our field teams (lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, softball and baseball), as they will be able to practice outside sooner in the spring.
