Northwestern University Athletics
Best Northwestern vs. Illinois Football Rivalry Memory
11/15/2006 12:00:00 AM | General
A Life Time of Memories
Grand Prize Winner Hob Jordan will recieve tickets to sit in Wildcat Den for this Saturday's game against Illinois.
His story...
My favorite memory about the Cats versus the Illini is not about a single game, play or tailgate. My favorite memory is about a lifetime friendship renewed each year at this rivalry game.
Beginning around 1967, my cousin Will and I began attending `Cats games at what was then called Dyche Stadium. Our passion for the `Cats was originally generated by our grandmother who held terrific season tickets. My cousin and I were very entertained by the football games provided, of course, food was readily available.
Attending games at Dyche Stadium quickly became a part of our fall activities through the 1960s and 70s. Then, in a decision that has impacted the two of us to this day, my cousin matriculated at the University of Illinois. At first blush I felt wrong criticizing him for his collegiate choice. After all, I was attending a school in Massachusetts so I could not fault him for choosing to leave the Chicago area. But as I thought it through, `well, to go to a rival Big Ten school, that was just not right.'
My sojourn to the East Coast was limited as I elected to return to Chicago to enter law school at, where else, Northwestern. Naturally despite the rigors of the law, Saturdays found me at Dyche Stadium, only this time, my cousin was no longer by my side. By the late 1980s, my cousin was back at home as well but his allegiance had turned. Oh he would root for the `Cats as long as doing so did not impact his now beloved Illini. For the last 17 years, when it's the `Cats versus the Illini, the two of us are at the stadium not merely as friends and cousins but at least for a few hours, as heated rivals.
Each year we comment that you can throw out the records when these teams face one another. He, in his "Pumpkin Head" bravado, reminds me of the game in 1989 when, in a gentlemen's bet, he backed his Illini by 45 points. Final score: NU 14, ILL 63. Fortunately, my memories are more current and include the "nail biters" of 1992 (NU 27, ILL 26) and 1996 (NU 27, ILL 24); the "Revenge game" of 2000 (NU 61, ILL 23); the "running game" of 2003 where Noah Herron and Jason Wright carried the team with only one pass attempt by Baz (Brett Basanez) leading to bowl eligibility (NU 37, ILL 20); the "Cardiac Cats Game" in which NU won a fourth overtime win in 2004 (NU 28, ILL 21) and last year's "fake field goal" game where Gerard Hamlett scored to the surprise of everyone in Champaign-Urbana (NU 38, ILL 21). So many wonderful memories!
But what is the memory that stands out the most? Renewing my life-long friendship with my cousin. No matter what is going on in our life, our job or with our children, for one day in the fall, we join together, relive our past, revel in the rivalry and remind ourselves what we first learned from our grandmother. Nothing is finer than a college football game between 100-year rivals where the result does not merely impact the teams' standings in the Big Ten, but establishes bragging rights between two guys for another 364 days.
Go Cats! Hob Jordan (Law 88)
