A Great Time for NU Sports, Basketball Needs Attention as Well

Northwestern's fifth straight women’s lacrosse National Title puts that team in rare company when it comes to team sports domination. Even better, the sport of lacrosse is so east-coast based that NU winning certainly helps drive the school’s profile upwards in a place where NU still probably doesn’t get a lot of attention. Also, for any NU team to win that much shows that it certainly is possible to have a great academic reputation and a great athletic reputation. I must say, I’ve been very impressed with the number of Northwestern alums who have stepped up and written articles about the team and what it means to see National Titles come to Evanston. Michael Wilbon’s article was probably the best, but several other good ones have been written as well.

Another NU sport which is getting a lot of positive press lately is football. Between the idea of playing a game at Wrigley Field (which I must admit I have mixed feelings about) and Coach Fitz showing up at a Cubs game, a Sox game, and on Twitter, has NU football getting a lot of attention. If you want read Coach Fitz’s tweets go to http://twitter.com/coachfitz51.

Actually, it was Fitz’s tweet about meeting with the North Shore mayors which got me thinking about today’s topic. It’s a great idea for NU football to try and reach out to the local community, but it doesn’t seem the same effort is made with basketball. Northwestern seems to miss many chances to promote their hoops squads. Or has given up on chances. Efforts were made in the past with Cat-Chats and such, but recently I haven’t seen as much. For example, at the Spring football game I didn’t see any sign of NU hoops. Now, I know it is to early to sell tickets, but some posters or something would be nice. Also, in the past Illinois has sent both their basketball and football coaches to sign at Wrigley. I see no reason why Bill Carmody couldn’t tag along with Fitz. Yes, NU basketball has made strides in local recruiting, but if they don’t continue to have a local presence those strides won’t last. If the Northwestern’s Athletic Department wants to send Fitz on tour, then Carmody, Hardy, or someone representing basketball should be right besides him. Fitz can be the main spokesperson, that’s fine, but some basketball representative should the Joe Biden to Fitz’s Obama.