Congratulations to Gary Barnett, who will be installed in the Northwestern Athletic Hall of Fame the weekend of the Ball State game. I know he left a bitter taste in some mouths by his departure, but this man delivered a true sports miracle here in 1995-96. I wonder if we will ever got 15-1 in the Big Ten again? What a magical two seasons. He literally saved Northwestern football. If we had sneaked into a bowl with a 6-6 or 7-5 record, it might have gotten a little attention, but as it was, it was the college football story of the year, and I would argue the decade. It made us truly able to call ourselves Chicago's Big Ten team today.
Barnett to NU Hall of Fame
- Thread starter Catreporter
- Start date
Absolutely. What Barnett accomplished was beyond what anyone believed possible. His impact on NU football cannot be underestimated. And I cannot begrudge his wanting to return to his roots at CU.
I have no bitter taste. He helped make the wildest dreams of NU fans come true. It's hard to imagine how crazy it was that he stated out loud that he'd take the Purple to Pasadena.
Even today with the disappointment of a couple of 5-7 seasons it's not that crazy to think a Rose Bowl could happen if things swing just right. In 1993 when he showed up it might as well have been a trip to Jupiter for how likely it seemed.
Even today with the disappointment of a couple of 5-7 seasons it's not that crazy to think a Rose Bowl could happen if things swing just right. In 1993 when he showed up it might as well have been a trip to Jupiter for how likely it seemed.
It left a bitter taste for me... but I'm over it, mostly. He deserves credit for bringing NU out of the dark ages.
Before Gary came, 3 and 4 win seasons got you a new contract (see Francis Peay) and BT Coach of the Year consideration (see Dennis Green). Now 5-7 is a disappointment, even when you beat Notre Dame! Gary set that bar higher, to be sure.
Me too. I was pissed that he was always courting others. At first it just put us further in the lime light but after a while it wore on me. The thing that hung with me for a while is he made many statement about how committed he was to NU even as he shopped around.
In the end he did turn the program around and I don't think we would be dreaming of winning seasons so consistently W.O. him.
I am one who really was turned off by his flirting with every school that came calling but if anyone deserves the NU HOF it is Gary Barnett, no doubt about it.
But the inductee I am most excited about is Jean Yale. She is the best and I could not be more happy for her.
She gets in and I don't? I could kick her butt easily.
I'll bet the Waterboy is disappointed today as well.
What the hell took so damn long?
Has anybody at NU ever been MORE famous than Gary Barnett? Accomplished more in athletics? It's a joke he wasn't inducted the day after the damn Rose Bowl!!
Come to think of it, did we even HAVE an Athletic Hall of Fame until GB came along? I'm not sure we did...
Has anybody at NU ever been MORE famous than Gary Barnett? Accomplished more in athletics? It's a joke he wasn't inducted the day after the damn Rose Bowl!!
Come to think of it, did we even HAVE an Athletic Hall of Fame until GB came along? I'm not sure we did...
OK. Just looked it up. 1984. We didn't even HAVE a HOF until 1984!
And it ain't exactly like we lit anything on fire between 1984 and 1995!
And it ain't exactly like we lit anything on fire between 1984 and 1995!
I got over it very quickly. When he showed up in Evanston just a short time after his departure to attend the funeral of a Northwestern Football Player, I had no further misgivings.
Barnett never won a bowl game with NU and Ohio State's omission from the 1995 and 1996 schedule benefited his teams in capturing the Big 10 titles for those years. Had he followed his own professed principles, he could have been the next Bear Bryant or Woody Hayes (at least the NU version of those great coaches) but he instead journeyed down the path of compromising allure and into the land of obscurity, shame and disgrace, and I did have schadenfreude about it at first.
Twenty years of reflection - and that nice round number explains the timing of his HOF induction and nothing more - has mellowed my anger over Barnett's departure from NU. He had no strong connections to Evanston before his hire and, under his circumstances, most of us would have left NU much sooner than he did, probably right after the 1996 Rose Bowl when his stock was highest. Give him credit for sticking it out a few more years. I quiver the spoon in my oatmeal bowl even thinking about the state of today's Program had Barnett been another dark ages dud: the legacy he built with those teams is visible today, starting with the head coach and the football stadium . . . and this very post you are reading right now.
Twenty years of reflection - and that nice round number explains the timing of his HOF induction and nothing more - has mellowed my anger over Barnett's departure from NU. He had no strong connections to Evanston before his hire and, under his circumstances, most of us would have left NU much sooner than he did, probably right after the 1996 Rose Bowl when his stock was highest. Give him credit for sticking it out a few more years. I quiver the spoon in my oatmeal bowl even thinking about the state of today's Program had Barnett been another dark ages dud: the legacy he built with those teams is visible today, starting with the head coach and the football stadium . . . and this very post you are reading right now.
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Agreed. I hated him when he left, but I got over it. Sitting through the mediocrity that we've gone through after his recruits left will do that to you. We were the best we've been under Barnett. Best recruits. Best defenses. Beat teams.
Yeah, it was rough watching an all NFL backfield and virtually an all NFL OL and DL under Walker.
He was a terrific coach (better than Walker, IMO). He could sell ice to Eskimos, but his recruiting overall wasn't much better than Walker's recruiting. However, his first three classes were excellent. He sold ice to a lot of Eskimos those years.
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Had we lost him to ND or the like after the RB, I would have had much more of a problem. But he went back to Colorado and as much as I was disappointed, I understood. I thought he got a pretty raw deal with Colorado and I have been shocked that he never got another chance. The state of the Colorado program has been pretty bad since he left. And even after he left NU, he still helped us when he was in a position to.
Overall, I was just glad we had him for the time we did.
