Why Wildcats?
The history of the Wildcats nickname can be traced to
1924. Wallace Abbey of the Chicago Tribune wrote the
following after a hard-fought loss to Chicago:
"... football players had not come down from Evanston;
Wildcats would be a name better suited to (Coach)
Thistlethwaite's boys ... Stagg's boys, his pride, his 11
that had tied Illinois a week ago, were unable to score for
57 minutes. Once they had the ball on the nine-yard line
and had been stopped dead by a Purple wall of wildcats."
From that day on, all the Northwestern athletic teams
have borne the nickname of "Wildcats." Years later, the captain of the 1924 team, Major General
Robert H. Wienecke, said "We were just an average team which developed a spirit that carried us to
superb heights against Chicago and Notre Dame. I feel that the reputation gained by the team in
those two final games of the 1924 season launched a momentum that was to lead to the Big Ten
championship two years later."
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