Interesting 16 year old New York Times Article

I happened on this article from the October 2, 1993 New York Times today. I think from an NU fan perspective it’s pretty interesting. It was written by Malcolm Moran and quotes NU faculty member Fred Hemke and NU punter Paul Burton who essentially predict NU’s Rose Bowl run two years before it happened. It is amazing to read Burton assess the different attitude of his classmates who would be the key cogs in two Big Ten Titles. Burton basically explains how his class of players really do buy into Barnett’s “Expect Victory” motto. Even more amazing, Hemke says, “Gary will take a team to the Rose Bowl” at a time when NU (despite a win over Boston College) hadn’t exactly completed the program turnaround. This is the kind of confidence NU needs in order to be successful. It should be easier now with evidence of success to point towards, but I think this really shows the type of leader Barnett was. It shows how effective he was at recruiting a class (including Fitz) that bought into his message of “belief without evidence” and then went out and created evidence for their beliefs.