On January 1st, 1994, UW-Madison’s football team performed the once thought impossible act by winning the school’s first ever Rose Bowl, giving the school’s athletic program hope again after more than a few unsuccessful years. Also in the 1993-1994 season, the men’s basketball team was experiencing success for the first time in forty-seven years, by making it to the NCAA basketball tournament in March, being just the cure the fans needed to escalate our spirits higher than ever.
This was much needed after the school’s athletic program financial woes. In 1991 the school even cut the baseball team after being a part of the school for over a century. Football basically paid the way for the other sports in the department, minus hockey, which held its own.
The football team was never a powerhouse like other schools in our conference, but they played decent football with Dave McClain as their head coach, who lead them to a few post-season bowl games. If they lost it was still okay for the athletic department as long as the roughly 80,000-seat Camp Randall Stadium stayed close to capacity. The fans were always allowed to drink and have a good time, because that meant that there was a cash flow to the box office. Attendance rose and fell slightly depending on how the team’s season went, but it never dropped below 70,000. If the team didn’t make a go of the season, the good-hearted Wisconsin fans would just look forward to the following season’s hopes. The fans never booed, and always cheered their team, even starting a “Fifth Quarter” tradition where after the game was completed, the fans would sing and dance led by the cheerleaders and the UW band.
UW-Madison was typically known for their academics instead of their athletics for the better part of the twentieth century. Being that most Wisconsinites believe in the value of hard work, dedication, determination, and a strong educational front, it was only natural that the Froke Guide to Colleges gave the University of Wisconsin-Madison the highest academic ranking at the number one spot in the country in 1993.
In the past few decades, Madison has turned into a great fan based college as well. Sports Illustrated on Campus magazine called Madison the nation’s number one best college sports town. Many people who are frustrated with their monotonous tasks in life, look to sports for some stress-free entertainment. Although there are the overzealous fans who get stressed out with sports and their favorite teams…some more so than not in our lovely Badger state. However, proving what a wonderful state we are, we rarely ever discourage our team. Many players love playing for a Wisconsin team for this exact reason. We love our teams, win or lose. The Bucks are a prime example of this. Upshot says, “Badger football fans are the most consistently loyal fans in America.” No matter where you go, even across the world, you will always find a fellow Badgers fan in a pub, bar, or restaurant watching the game as well. 87% of Wisconsin residents support the Badgers.
Some of our biggest fans have started some of our best traditions. Started by one of UW-Madison’s biggest men’s basketball fans, was the famous Butch’s Bologna Bash, where ten thousand plus athletes and fans would join together for a special night of cheese and meat eating while drinking beer to their heart’s content and singing “If You Want to Be a Badger.”
The start of the sport of basketball happened on March 1st, 1892 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Just six years later, the child in all of us got excited when it came to UW. It would take another seventy-seven years before it officially became a sport at the school for women however.
In 1981, was when the Big Ten and NCAA finally recognized women’s athletics with conference and national championships. In the 1995-1996 season, the UW women made it into the top ten in the Associated Press rankings for the first time. Jane Albright-Dieterle was the UW women’s head coach from 1994-2003, winning the NIT tournament in 2000. During her time, the team was extremely successful and popularly known nation-wide as “BadgerBall.” On January 20th, 2002, the Kohl Center sold out with over 17,000 attending the women’s basketball game verses U of M, setting a Big Ten record. Consistently ranking in the top spots for attendance in the nation is not only the men’s basketball games, but women’s as well. Women’s basketball ranks in the top 15 for college attendance in the nation since 1995 and has turned into a fan favorite with UW students for the past decade. A great UW athlete was Jolene Anderson, who is the fastest Badger’s player ever, man or woman, to score 1,000 points.
Wisconsin is kind of credited for the modern play of the game in basketball, called “the Wisconsin system” where instead of physical contact that was previously used in games, they started using quick passes to the other players and pivots to turn the ball, a finesse that wasn’t seen previously. They changed the way that game was played.
Christian Steinmetz, whose personal record of 462 points in 18 games earned him the recognition of being inducted into the UW-Madison athletic and the National Basketball Hall of Fames, is known as the “father of Wisconsin basketball.”
The Badgers have only had three venues to call home court; the Red Gym from 1892-1929, UW Field House from 1930-1998, and the Kohl Center from 1998-present. The Red Gym held a little over 2,000 seats. January 14th, 1998 was the last basketball game played at the Field House, which could only accommodate 11,500 fans. The new Kohl Center would seat roughly 17,000. The first game at the Kohl Center, attended by Senator Herb Kohl, who donated a good majority of the money to the construction of the new building, was a crowd of 16,697 fans. The largest crowd before the 2015 season to watch the Badger’s basketball was on April 1st, 2000 to a group of 43,116 in the NCAA Final Four game against Michigan State.
Grateful Red is the student section at the Kohl Center. They are so prominent that a local brewery in Madison named a beer after them, the Grateful Red IPA by Capital Brewing. The Detroit News ranked the section the number one college basketball student section in February, 2007. The section alone holds 2,100 students and extends floor to roof with a span of three decks. It is always full.
The men’s basketball team has an overall record of 1551-1173 (.569). They have been the conference regular season champions eighteen times and the conference tournament champions three times. They have made NCAA tournament appearances twenty-two times, consecutively since 1999. They have made it to the sweet sixteen nine times, the elite eight six times, the final four four times, lost a heart-breaking championship game in 2015, and won the championship in 1941.
Harold “Bud” Foster lead the 1940-1941 team to the NCAA tournament. After the 1941 championship game, it would be another fifty-nine years until the Badgers made it to the final four in the NCAA tournament. In 2000, at Camp Randall Stadium, over 20,000 fans honored the men’s basketball team for making it to the final four conquering four teams before losing to Michigan State 41-53. When the 2002 team won the conference title, the fans poured onto the court to see coach Bo Ryan cut down the net. The Badgers held a thirty-eight game home winning streak until beaten by number one ranked Illinois in the 2004-2005 season.
In 2015, they received their first ever number one seed in the NCAA tournament bracket, where they were ranked number three overall in the nation. They took that record to the championship game where they lost to Duke 63-68. This past March Madness, they were defeated by Notre Dame in the sweet sixteen 56-61. The single season points scored record is held by Frank Kaminsky with 732 in the 2014-2015 season. He also holds the single game points scored with 43 on November 19th, 2013 and was named National College Player of the year in 2015.
The Badgers have had thirty-eight players enter into the NBA draft, starting with Glen Selbo in 1947 to Sam Dekker in 2015. Bo Ryan who announced his immediate retirement in December of 2015, coached for fourteen years with UW-Madison, coming to the school from UW-Platteville and prior to that Milwaukee. With a record of 364-130, he was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2002, 2003, 2013, and 2015.
Basketball is not the only sport that Wisconsin residents enjoy watching. The Field House is now home to Volleyball, which leads the Big Ten in attendance. The cheer from the crowd, “Point, Wisconsin” is heard every time they score. Rowing is UW’s oldest college sport, where Madison is known as the rowing capital of the Midwest. Many Wisconsin athletes are on the Olympic rowing team every four years. There has rarely been an Olympics without one. People bring a picnic basket and bottle of wine and watch the Badger Rowing team at leisure. The Nielson Tennis Stadium, was ranked by the US Tennis Association as one of the finest year round facilities in the nation.
Hockey is another big UW-Madison sport. The Kohl Center is considered one of, if not the best hockey facility in the nation. Hockey has led the nation in college game attendance more than any other team with over forty leads in attendance since the 1969-1970 season. Women’s hockey was officially a sport at UW in 1998. Sports announcers have said if there is ever to be a dynasty in Women’s hockey, it will be with UW-Madison. One of the school’s most memorable hockey moments was on March 26th, 2006: Badger fans ran upon the ice at Mariucci Arena to help carry the NCAA championship trophy out of the state of Minnesota for the first time in school history.
UW track and field has been around since 1893 and had many Olympians compete. The men’s team, has ruled the indoor and outdoor track in the Big Ten. And the women have more championships than any other Big Ten school.
Men and Women’s cross-country are one of the most successful in the country with numerous championships, All-Americans, and appearances. UW golfers play on University Ridge Golf Course, a par-72, 18-hole course that opened in 1991; it was ranked in the top 10 best university courses in the nation by Golf Week Magazine.
Among the oldest sport to include both men and women is the swimming and diving teams. Many athletes are in the Hall of Fame at school with around thirty Big Ten Championships, numerous All-Americans, and US National team members. UW Men’s soccer already has an NCAA championship from 1995 with a win against Duke. Wrestling has been a sport at Madison since 1911.
Boxing was the highest watched/sought after/popular sport at UW from 1933-1960. On the same night Joe Louis defended his crown in 1940 in Madison Square Garden to a crowd of 11,000…there were 15,000 fans packed into the Field House to watch UW Boxing. Typically, crowds gathered of 10,000-11,000 plus some for the NCAA tournament fights. The boxers were the biggest sport heroes. Boxing ended at UW and every other college in 1960 when Badger’s best and most popular boxer, Charlie Mohr, died after a tournament bout.
After a $2.1 million budget shortfall, the school cut baseball, along with men and women’s fencing, and men and women’s gymnastics in 1991. To this day, UW is the only school in the Big Ten Conference without a baseball team. Barry Alvarez, as now acting athletic director, reevaluated the decision to add a men’s baseball team back into the school’s program back in April of 2015, according to http:www.host.madison.com. Jim Frueh, was a fencer who was almost killed after his lung got punctured during the sport just two weeks before his sport got cut. He was one of Madison’s best and was watched by many devoted fans.
2005-2006 was the first time in school history that four Badger teams won national championships in one academic year: men’s cross-country, men and women’s ice hockey, and women’s light-weight rowing. While all of those accomplishments are amazing for Badger sports fans all over the world, we don’t get quite as excited as we do when we watch the Badgers football team play in a bowl game.
The Badgers football team has played in twenty-seven bowl games to date from 1952 until now, with a sixty plus year history with the games. Our record is 13/27. The Badgers played the first bowl game on January 1st, 1953 (the 1952 season) in Pasadena under the direction of Ivy Williams against the USC Trojans. The Badgers lost that Rose Bowl 0-7. They won their first bowl game on December 11th, 1982 against Kansas State Wildcats under Dave McClain. The 14-3 Independence Bowl win held 49,503 in attendance. In all of their years playing in bowl games, the Badgers have only had seven coaches, with the surge of Barry Alvarez at the helm, turning things around for the better. He is known as the winningest coach in Badger football history with a record of 9/13 in bowl games. Playing Auburn, UCLA, and USC each in three separate bowl games, the Badgers have played only fifteen other teams in their bowl game history. The team was established in 1889 and plays in the NCAA Division 1 Big Ten Conference and has appeared nine times in the Rose Bowl and five Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The Badgers are the only Big Ten team to win back to back Rose Bowls.
Barry Alvarez coached as a defensive coach at Notre Dame before coming to Wisconsin. He was named Big Ten Coach of the Year twice, in 1993 and in 1998. In 1993 he was named Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association.
Camp Randall Stadium is the oldest and fifth largest stadium in the Big Ten Conference. It is the forty-first largest stadium in the world with a capacity of over 80,000. The largest crowd ever was 83,184 on November 12th, 2005 verse Iowa.
College football became such an American past-time that people couldn’t get enough of it, and to show a little Wisconsin pride, the Wisconsin-Michigan game of 1924 was the first live broadcast of a football game ever. There have been two UW Heisman Award winners: 1954 - Alan Ameche and 1999 - Ron Dayne. Ron “Great Dayne” Dayne still holds NCAA and Big Ten records for career rushing yards at 6,397.
One of Wisconsin Badger fans and athletes alike, favorite traditions is the Paul Bunyan’s Axe (formerly as the slab of bacon trophy). It is a trophy that follows the winner home of the UW/U of M game, which is the oldest rivalry in all of football battling each other every year since 1890.
Another big tradition in Badger football is “Jump Around”, which is played between the third and fourth quarters as the student section literally jumps around to liven up. “Jump Around” by House of Pain, is a tradition that started on Homecoming night, October 10th, 1999, against Drew Brees and the rest of the Purdue team. Jamar Fletcher intercepted his pass and got a pick six at the final play of the third quarter, sending the fans into a frenzy of excitement. Wanting to keep the crowd on its feet during the TV commercial break, the man in charge of the music happened to see “Jump Around” and played it. “…I looked at the crowd and it looked like popcorn. All the students were jumping,” he recalled. Now the stadium is known for that song and it is played at every home game in the second half. It gets fans pumped up and players, who usually get a few jumps in as well. New sports announcers get nervous being there because literally everything shakes, including the TVs mounted in the press boxes.
The Badgers hold the record for playing in a bowl game while the basketball team plays in the NCAA tournament during the same year. The streak has lasted since the 2002-2003 season and still continues. Records like these are what make watching the games even more worthwhile. When there are day to day life chores that need to be met, it is fun to feel like a kid again and cheer your heart out to put that joy on your face. It is fun watching these athletes go on to professional sports, because you feel like they are a part of your family almost. For instance, Jim Leonhard, who tied a Big Ten record with eleven picks in one season. It was awesome watching him play on Sunday night in the NFL. Even though he wasn’t a Packer, we still cheered him on.
The Big Ten is the oldest conference in the country, founded in 1896. And we have been watching our teams play ever since. Sports bring excitement, anticipation, and pure happiness that we don’t always feel with the other aspects of our day. It is nice to unwind and not worry about what is going to happen at work tomorrow. So go ahead and tailgate, show some Wisconsin pride and let that improper adult out to have a good time.
Sources: Kendleigh, Andy. The Best Wisconsin Sports Arguments. Naperville; Sourcebooks, Inc. 2009.
Kaufman, Gabriel. Inside College Football: Football in the Big Ten. New York; The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. 2008
Minnich, Jerry. Badger Sports Trivia Teasers. Madison; Big Earth Publishing. 2006
Anderson, Dave. Images of Sports. Charleston; Arcadia Publishing. 2006.
Baggot, Andy. http://host.madison.com/sports/college/badgersports. April 25, 2015.
Telander, Rick. From Red Ink to Roses. New York; Simon & Schuster. 1994.
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