Before the Badger football showdown with Michigan, AOL Instant Messenger away messages, T-shirts and dialogue among Badger football fans were flooded by puns depicting Ann Arbor as whore-personified -deserving to be beaten, conquered and dominated.
Before the Badger football showdown with Michigan, AOL Instant Messenger away messages, T-shirts and dialogue among Badger football fans were flooded by puns depicting Ann Arbor as whore-personified -deserving to be beaten, conquered and dominated.
Dear Editor: I can’t help but read all the negative feedback on the Camp Randall sculpture without blankly smiling and shaking my head. Madison, the bastion of culture, the home of the open-minded and outwardly thinking. Please prove that these are more than just words and meaningless talk.
Good art is often controversial. Otherwise it is generally stale, and just more decoration, like a flowerpot or a rug. I applaud the University of Wisconsin and Donald Lipski for exploring a vision and for trying to do something beyond the pedantic and boring.
This weekend will not be of typical fashion for one of UW-Madison’s fraternities.
Sigma Phi Epsilon will defy the typical “frat” stereotype by partaking in Tour de Touchdown. The event began Wednesday and will conclude at the Badger football game Saturday at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
We want more beer! We want more beer!
This chant is familiar to all those who dedicate their Saturdays to going out to support our amazing (and undefeated) 2005 football team. The season has started off just like any other; students decked out in their brightest red gear, with beers in hand, tailgating before the games.
OF ALL the intriguing characters who have passed through Camp Randall Stadium over the years, on and off the field, perhaps no one is as mysterious as the “Phantom,” who according to legend saw every home Badger football game in the 1970s – without once buying a ticket.
For a time the Phantom existed only in whispered stories of disguises, derring-do and close encounters with uniformed ushers. But then, sometime in the mid-1970s, Fred Milverstedt wrote about the Phantom in his Capital Times sports column, and the Phantom was immortalized.
MADISON, Wis. – UW Women’s Basketball Coach Lisa Stone will be “arrested” Thursday, October 6 from 10 to noon, as part of the March of Dimes “Jail and Bail” fundraising event.
The fall season for Badger Athletics has certainly gotten off to a fine start. Four teams are nationally ranked, including the menââ?¬â?¢s and women’s cross country teams. Additionally, the volleyball team has joined the nationââ?¬â?¢s top 10 and football cracked the rankings. In addition, our winters seasons are beginning in October and both the men’s and women’s hockey teams are nationally ranked, the women at No. 1.
On the grounds of UW-Madison’s Camp Randall stands an empty pedestal, which will soon serve as the home of a significant installment of original art.
I have heard of Wisconsin’s “party school” image and the reputation of Camp Randall being a difficult place to play. As my wife and I walked to the stadium, we saw the many tailgate parties of people having a good time. The closer we got to the stadium, the more the comments took on a nasty and personal tone.
….Once inside Camp Randall, clad in Michigan gear, we naturally attracted attention. As we sat, we talked with those who were seated around us. Those who sat in seats immediately to our left, right and behind were very nice to us throughout the game.
As the game went on we were disheartened by the profanity from the student section and by the vulgar cheers aimed at Michigan fans. The statements directed at us (even to my wife) were profane, offensive, disgusting and almost unbelievable.
A couple items to ponder while choking down a brat for breakfast during your pregame tailgate party:
** Should University of Wisconsin running back Brian Calhoun be considered a Heisman Trophy contender?
…unlike in 1999, when Ron Dayne set the NCAA career rushing record en route to winning college football’s most prestigious award, those within the UW athletic department don’t have anything special planned to ratchet up the Calhoun publicity machine.
Sep. 30, 2005 – During my brief stint as a sportswriter, I mastered the skill of learning just enough about unfamiliar situations to look like I might know what I was doing. At bowling matches I would throw out a line about oil patterns, at wrestling it was a casual comment about the advantage of starting on top.
In the weeks leading up to my first big college football game (A fact I can only admit now that I am no longer covering sports), I took a few moments away from sweating over the Yankees playoff bid to study up on a few key terms in the University of Wisconsin football glossary
BALTIMORE ââ?¬â? They’re expecting a near-capacity crowd of around 250 people at Dagwood’s Grill and Bar on 42nd Street this afternoon.
That would be 42nd Street in Grand Forks, N.D., home of Jets quarterback Brooks Bollinger, a native son whose popularity has been on the rise since he became a starter his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin.
Dress in red from head to toe, grab some cold drinks, head to Camp Randall and help cheer on the Badgers to victory. What could be a better way to spend a Saturday?
Fans going to today’s Badger football game can buy a cuddly Bucky Badger to take home.
American Family Insurance, which is sponsoring today’s game, decided to sell Bucky Badger plush toys with the hope of raising $200,000 for the American Family Children’s Hospital, said Judy Lowell, community relations manager at American Family.
The interior decorating of the visiting locker room at Kinnick Stadium is intended to have a calming effect, but the pink walls, toilets, urinals, lockers and carpet are having the opposite effect on the University of Iowa campus.
An adjunct law professor gained attention last week after saying the pink locker room promotes sexism and homophobia.
And when Erin Buzuvis raised the issue last week on her Web site, she drew more than 280 replies. The postings ranged from defending her position to a few anonymous posters threatening her life.
The same year John Wiley became the University of Wisconsin chancellor, he presided over one of the lowest points in UW Athletic Department history.
Wiley was front and center five years ago when punishments from The Shoe Box affair – in-house sanctions as well as those from the NCAA – were handed down in the extra-benefits case that involved 157 UW student-athletes in 14 sports.
Boston Red Sox fans wearing T-shirts that say ââ?¬Å?Yankees Suckââ?¬Â will be asked to turn them inside-out before entering Fenway Park for this weekend’s showdown series between the Red Sox and their hated rivals from New York.
The sound rained down as my wife and I stood with our 13-year-old son and his friend in the 12th row of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium Saturday evening.
Wisconsin had just scored with 24 seconds left for a dramatic 23-20 victory. You could barely hear yourself think, but I managed one thought. “Mission accomplished,” I said to myself.
A prominent Eastern sports network is running a series of commercials based around the slogan, “Everything Changes on GameDay.”
MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin Trademark Licensing program generated more than $1.6 million in royalties for fiscal year 2004-05, the second-highest total since the licensing program was established in 1988.
It’s the hottest football ticket in at least five years.
The scalpers sense a windfall as they cruise the streets around Camp Randall Stadium, scooping up tickets before Saturday’s 5 p.m. showdown between the University of Wisconsin and 14th-ranked University of Michigan.
Other Wisconsin fans at Saturday’s Badger game at Camp Randall Stadium probably saw the empty pedestal at the corner of Crazylegs Drive and Breese Terrace and imagined what I did.
I could just picture a sculpture of old Crazylegs, Elroy Hirsch, doing his famous huck and buck atop the pedestal. He’d look great with the retro- themed renovations just completed at the stadium.
The call finally came at 3 a.m. on Saturday. On the other end of the line was Johnny White’s mother, Beverly, assuring the junior safety for the University of Wisconsin football team that she and Johnny Sr. had survived a grueling evacuation from their home near Houston, which was being threatened by Hurricane Rita.
For 20 long hours, White had been unable to speak to his parents, whose plans to come to Madison for the Michigan game were thrown for a loop when all of the Friday afternoon flights in the area were canceled.
MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s CHAMPS program was selected as one of four 2005 Program of Excellence recipients, the Division I-A Athletic Directorsââ?¬â?¢ Association announced. UW was to be honored at the annual meeting and awards presentation Monday at the DFW Hilton in Dallas until the event was canceled due to Hurricane Rita.
Expansion plans for University Ridge Golf Course got the go-ahead (last week) when the State Building Commission approved spending $5 million for the project.
Plans include building a nine-hole academy course and short-game practice facility, expanding the existing driving range and adding a cross country course for the University of Wisconsin programs.
Funding is not provided by the state. Rather, it is apportioned from revenues at University Ridge as well as gifts. The project will not require the UW to take on any debt.
When the University of Wisconsin Athletic Board held its first meeting of the new school year Friday, its members sat through a relatively short, but significant session.
Not only did they get a closed-door presentation from UW chancellor John Wiley, they acknowledged a series of important personnel moves.
The University of Wisconsin volleyball team defeated Iowa for the 21st straight time Sunday, but the outcome’s meaning was far from routine.
The 10th-ranked Badgers (10-1 overall, 2-0 Big Ten Conference) not only climbed into a first-place tie with No. 4 Penn State in the league standings, but UW coach Pete Waite surpassed John Cook as the winningest coach in program history.
Now that school is back in session, Troy Maragos is finding some interesting ways to spend his time on the UW-Madison campus.
Take Sept. 3, for example. Just hours before the Wisconsin Badgers defeated Bowling Green for the grand reopening of Camp Randall Stadium, Maragos donned 35 pounds of cardinal and white – including a rock-hard plastic head as big as a boulder (and about as heavy) – and tooled around Madison’s Capitol Square in the Bucky Wagon, a circa-1940 fire truck, happily firing up the crowd of pregame revelers, some of whom playfully threw fresh apples and other produce from the local farmers’ market his way.
In the wake of Jamie Pollard’s departure from the University of Wisconsin, athletic director Barry Alvarez has temporarily realigned his staff.
The 1960s produced pop art, a Packers dynasty and the UW-Madison’s most legendary football game at the Rose Bowl in 1963.
That era is evoked in a new sculpture by internationally acclaimed sculptor Donald Lipski. The 50-foot-tall sculpture is intended to be a centerpiece of the Camp Randall Stadium renovations. Installation will begin Oct. 18 and be completed in time for the University of Wisconsin’s homecoming game on Oct. 22.
Fifteen years ago, Barry Alvarez’s first adult portion of the Michigan Wolverines was served cold. Wisconsin lost by 38, Camp Randall had empty seats and a lone Michigan fan with a boom box made it worse by playing that harder-to-get-out-of-your-head-than-the-Macarena fight song that reverberated throughout the silent stadium with each score, which was often.
The Big Blue menace, then, has been as much a part of the Alvarez legacy as anything, including the three Rose Bowl championships.
MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? Now that school is back in session, Troy Maragos is finding some interesting ways to spend his time on the UW-Madison campus.
As you make your way to Camp Randall Stadium for today’s game, you might be wondering: What’s with the concrete pedestal at the corner of Breese Terrace and Regent Street?
It’s the hottest football ticket in at least five years.
The scalpers sense a windfall as they cruise the streets around Camp Randall Stadium, scooping up tickets before Saturday’s 5 p.m. showdown between the University of Wisconsin and 14th-ranked University of Michigan.
Following two weekends of chaos and congestion some U.W. football fans enjoy a bit more elbow room.
During the past week, the U.W. Athletic Department pumped $50,000 into an effort to ease the flow of traffic. Camp Randall is wrapping up a $109 million renovation project and university officials say the application of these improvements represents an on-going process.
It appears as though a University of Wisconsin initiative is paying off as the Badgers roll out the red carpet.
Following years of complaints regarding inhospitable behavior by Badger fans, the university began its Roll Out the Red Carpet initiative during the 2004 football season. The program’s goal involves helping provide a more welcoming atmosphere for fans of visiting athletic teams.
MADISON, Wis. – Helping welcome relocated students and families from the Gulf Coast region affected by Hurricane Katrina has been on the minds of many UW student-athletes and staff recently. The athletic department has assisted with several separate events since the devastating storm ripped through the countryââ?¬â?¢s southeastern region.
Tucked in a file cabinet in the office of University of Oregon President David Frohnmayer is an inch-thick folder of plans for a college football playoff. The mail, on average, brings one a week.
On Badger game days, standards of appropriate behavior in Madison change as fans yell ââ?¬Å?a*sholeââ?¬Â to out-of-state strangers, chant ââ?¬Å?f*ck you, eat sh*tââ?¬Â to their fellow students and paint their bodies red and white.
The never-ending search for revenue has University of Wisconsin Athletic Department officials looking at a source that, at first glance, is pretty tapped out.
Former University of Wisconsin basketball standout Mike Wilkinson has signed a contract to play with the Aris B.S.A. club in Thessaloniki, Greece. Aris plays in the top league in Greece and participates in Euroleague competition.
Big time athletic departments at colleges around the nation have spirit, yes they do, but theyââ?¬â?¢re telling some ââ?¬Å?spiritââ?¬Â groups ââ?¬Å?Weââ?¬â?¢ll have to do it, without you.ââ?¬Â
JAMES “MOOSE” Werner, colorful proprietor of the venerable Club Tavern in Middleton, phoned the other day with a complaint.
“You have besmirched a noble profession,” he said.
Werner was referring to the column last week on Madison money manager Shannon Werner and his new anti-ticket scalping Web site. In the column I had spoken of scalpers in less than glowing terms.
“It is simple supply and demand,” Moose said.
How badly do Badger fans want men’s basketball tickets?
Joe, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who wished not to be identified by his last name, knows that many people would be willing to pay big money for those seats.
Joe put six UW-Madison men’s basketball season tickets on eBay on Sunday night, charging $1,400 per pair. The seats were located in section 117, with a low-level, unobstructed, diagonal view of the court….Face value for a pair of tickets in that section would be $288 for a pair.
Wisconsin officials are close to finalizing UW’s 2006 football schedule with a 12th game but have asked Virginia Tech officials to push back the Badgers’ scheduled games with the Hokies in 2008 and ’09.
Saturday, Oct. 1 is slated as the first test of a new policy permitting the sale of alcohol inside premium seating areas of Spartan Stadium, a practice that is becoming more common in schools around the Big Ten Conference.
MADISON, Wis. – The congestion issues that have arisen in the west concourse during UW football games at Camp Randall Stadium should be improved for Saturdayââ?¬â?¢s Michigan game.
Deputy athletic director to move to Iowa State
New plan leads to savings for state taxpayers
Smoke affects bartenders, study says
Iowa State’s courtship of Jamie Pollard was a whirlwind affair that lasted about one week before he accepted the school’s offer to become its athletic director.
Pollard, the deputy athletic director at Wisconsin, was one of three candidates who interviewed for the Iowa State job last weekend in Chicago. He was offered the job and accepted it Sunday.
That’s when Wisconsin athletic director and football coach Barry Alvarez found out he was losing his top aide and administrator of the day-to-day operations of the 23-sport, $72 million department.
In his role as University of Wisconsin football coach, Barry Alvarez talked Monday about having to find replacement parts for his team on the field.
In the same news conference setting, Alvarez discussed the reality of having to take similar action off the field as UW athletic director.
Ames, Ia. ââ?¬â? Jamie Pollard looked at the potential for the Iowa State athletic department, then he looked south to Des Moines before agreeing to become the Cyclones’ next athletic director Sunday night.
Specifically, Pollard looked at the services Blank Children’s Hospital could offer one of his four children, 3-year-old son, James, who was born with a tumor called sacrococcygeal teratoma.
AMES, Iowa – Jamie Pollard wanted the perfect fit if he was going to become an athletic director.
He found it at Iowa State.
Pollard, deputy athletic director at Wisconsin the last two years, was introduced as Iowa State’s athletic director on Monday, completing a quick, secretive search by the university and a whirlwind week for Pollard and his family.
Jamie Pollard’s decision to step down as the University of Wisconsin’s deputy director of athletics and take over Iowa State’s athletic department is a significant personnel loss for UW, which has relied heavily on Pollard’s expertise for the last several years.
More than a decade later, Wisconsin football coach Barry Alvarez still vividly recalls the violent clash of emotion and color. Euphoria one moment; agony the next. One moment you’re wading through a sea of red and dreaming the impossible, a trip to the Rose Bowl. The next moment you’re face to face with the unthinkable, a crush of bodies in the north end of Camp Randall Stadium, many of those bodies blue after being trampled during the students’ rush from the stands.
Ames, Iowa – Jamie Pollard, deputy athletics director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been named athletics director at Iowa State University, effective Oct. 1.
An aggressive effort to ease traffic flow problems for UW-Madison football fans on the west side of Camp Randall Stadium began in earnest Monday.
Athletic Department officials were given the go-ahead to spend money – from a Camp Randall renovation contingency fund, part of the current budget for UW-Madison athletics – for improvements intended to be in place Saturday when the Badgers host Michigan.
Barry Alvarez is losing his right-hand man in the University of Wisconsin athletic department.
Jamie Pollard, a rising star in the sports management profession who has served the past two years as deputy athletic director at the UW, was named the new athletic director at Iowa State this morning.
In years past, lines for season tickets formed at the Kohl Center twice during the fall: once for hockey tickets and again for basketball. But this year, an e-mail notification gave students two days’ notice and scheduled both distribution times this past weekend.
For openers, everything was nearly perfect for the Wisconsin volleyball team.
It started with arguably the largest student section to ever watch the Badgers play volleyball at the UW Field House.
