Minnesota-Wisconsin College Football Rivalry
By Dave Anderson and Joel Maturi
()
About this ebook
Dave Anderson
Dave Anderson joined the New York Times in 1966 after working at the New York Journal-American and the Brooklyn Eagle. He became a Sports of The Times columnist in 1971 and won a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1981. Among many other honors, he was inducted into the National Sports Writers and Sportscasters Hall of Fame in 1990 and in 1991 received the Red Smith Award for contributions to sports journalism from the Associated Press Sports Editors.
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Minnesota-Wisconsin College Football Rivalry - Dave Anderson
INTRODUCTION
Bro-D, grab me a sandwich!
Today, Saturday, November 29, 2014, marks the 124th football game between the University of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota. It is a chamber-of-commerce-perfect Midwest sapphire sky morning in Madison, Wisconsin, as we drive toward Camp Randall Stadium, site of today’s game. The winning team of this annual contest holds onto for a year Paul Bunyan’s Axe, which serves as the traveling trophy for the rivalry. Beginning in 1930, Wisconsin and Minnesota battled for the Slab of Bacon, a piece of wood with either a M
or a W
on it (depending on which way you looked at it). The axe was introduced in 1948, after the Slab of Bacon went missing. The Slab of Bacon was later found in 1994 in an old storage closet at Camp Randall. Surprise!
Now, there are many great annual rivalries in Division I college football, like Army-Navy, Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, Florida State-Miami, and of course, Florida-Georgia (also known as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party
). Then there’s the Oklahoma-Texas Red River Showdown,
and out West, we can’t forget Cal-Stanford or when Notre Dame plays the University of Southern California. Plus, there are many additional marvelous college football rivalries, big universities to smaller schools, too many to pay homage to right now, but all understandably important and exciting in their own right. That being said, one—and only one—can make claim to being No. 1, the longest college football rivalry in Division I football with the most games ever played.
And that, my friends, is Wisconsin-Minnesota.
It all commenced on November 15, 1890, when the mighty Minnesota squad visited Madison and left with a 63-0 victory. Since then, Wisconsin and Minnesota have battled annually (except in 1906 when Pres. Theodore Roosevelt suspended college football rivalry games for safety concerns due to player injuries and fatalities on the field). Minnesota leads the historic series before today’s 2014 game with 59 wins, 56 losses, and 8 ties. However, Wisconsin has won in each of the past 10 years and 17 of the past 19 years, and most everyone I talk to in either state predicts an 11th consecutive Badger win, but both teams are having tremendous seasons, so anything is possible this year. Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill this week said, We need to do our part in the rivalry because we haven’t done it in 10 years.
Adding to the significance of today’s game, the winner not only captures Paul Bunyan’s Axe, but also the Big Ten West Division title and a trip to next week’s Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis.
So, with a ticket (section KK, row 37, seat 7) happily secured for today’s game, I am standing a couple blocks from Camp Randall on this surprisingly warm and sun-splashed late November morning, wondering if I even need to carry my thick Helly Hansen parka for later inside the stadium. I put the parka decision on hold, focusing instead at a nice array of wonderful foods on the downed tailgate of a black Ford Expedition.
The person barking for a sandwich, Brian Isetts, professor at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, stands behind me donning a toothy grin and sunglasses, holding what looks to be a small potted plant. Upon closer inspection, I see it is in reality a Bloody Mary with several stalks of celery and other garnishes, which he lovingly stirs with a beef stick. Because we’ve known each other for over 40 years, he calls me by my high school nickname Bro-D
and has no qualms about ordering me around. Usually, I would ignore him, but it was Brian who introduced me just a week prior on the University of Minnesota campus to Joel Maturi, athletic director at Minnesota from 2002 to 2012 and, before that, administrator in the athletic department at Wisconsin, who wrote the tremendous foreword to this book. Joel Maturi probably understands what this rivalry means more than any other person on the planet because he has played a major role in resurrecting both programs to national powerhouse