Actually, the proclaimation was made in 1984 to prepare for Big 8 membership by the year 2000. The year 2000 was an estimate as to how long it was going to complete the master facility plan at NIU (which included the state of the art 10,000 basketball arena) and roughly to build up the football program to a level attractive to the Big 8. The timeline of "2000" was more of a strategic objective for the university, rather than something which just pertained to athletics.

NIU's fatefull decision set the MAC back 10 years, and led to the addition of the unsuccessful Akron program to fill out the conference ranks. Bringing Akron into the MAC only had the effect of killing Kent State's program. Had NIU stayed put, the MAC's TV exposure would of been further along, and Marshall would have more likely stayed in the league with an even 12 members.

as the one who first brought up the unique status of NIU in such a large state as Illinois, i'd like to add the following:

NIU as an institution within the state of Illinois is pretty much lumped together with SIU and ISU (non-athletically). Schools like EIU, WIU, SIUE, NEIU, Chgo St, UIS, etc., are much smaller.

Athletically NIU's 1-A status puts the Huskies ahead of SIU and iSU.

I think it is important to note here that Illinois is not a hot bed of college football. The Illini draw when they are successful, otherwise there are a lot of empty seats. IMHO, Illinois football lacks the passion of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio State.

NU bascially has had the Chgo market to itself since the 1940's (when U of C football ended) as the only major school that plays 1-A in the area. As a private institution, NU attendance doesn't and never will match U of i. The Cats, like the Illini, need to be winning to be successful. NU does have a commitment to B10 football it never had before and has matched that with faciliites that are greatly improved. NU's national prominence should help the program. I see Northwestern as being fairly competitve (not a conference champ, though) in coming years.

Another opinion: I can't think of any other instate rivalry in the nation (where a state has only 2 major conference schools) that is as bland as UI-NU. Even Tennesse-Vandy seems more interesting.

So Northern, out there in the cornfields (albeit closer-by corn fields) may suffer from the same lack of draw that Champaign/Urbana has from Chicagoland.

As for b'ball, Chicagoland is a pretty crowded market with DePaul, Loyola, Northwestern, etc. In the metro area, NIU is welll behind two programs: one (UIC) calls Chicago home, the other (Illinois) calls Chicago its second home. Tough to deal with for the Huskies.

PS....keep an eye on UIC. It is the state's second largest school and the second best state school acadmically. It will be a power to deal with in sports and academics, even without a football team.

bgdz, The meaning of the word “state” can be very confusing and I originally thought you were saying that UIC was better than two of the following three academically: NW, Chicago, and Illinois. I then realized that you were talking about “state” in the sense of being “public”. I wonder how many times in the past, I and others on this board have misread the meaning of "state" in other posts?

The situation at Akron, wherein ex-Notre Dame coach Gerry Faust was hired on the condition that the school would leave the Ohio Valley Conference and go I-A (the school had been D-II until 1980) was probably even more short-sighted than the decision made at NIU.

First, consider that the school was coming off of its first and only post-season appearance at the D-I level (1985) and that the coach was ushered out to make room for Gerry Faust and his grandiose demands. Then, remember where Akron is located and the fact that Ohio already had seven I-A schools. It's not every day that your school president gets "called out" by Bo Schembechler's questioning of his ability to even run a JUCO...

If NIU remained in the MAC, there is a good possibility that they would have made a "Marshall" type impact. That being said, I'm not certain that NIU (or Marshall) would have been long for the MAC under that circumstance...perhaps NIU would have gone on to become a charter member of C-USA...with or without DePaul...

good point.....public it is!