FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Mr. Ypsi]

Gregory, I'm with you.  Little Brass What?

BELL, Ypsi, BELL. 🔔
Something of your's thats been rung a time or two too many! 

Well, true.

But I'm starting to wonder about cause and effect.  The first Saturday of every month the tornado sirens go off at noon.  Yesterday, on a clear-blue, beautiful day, they sounded.  Not more than ten minutes later, out of no lead-up, we got 50-mile an hour wind gusts!  Only lasted less than a minute, but freaky as hell!  Fortunately, no thunder!

Fortunately, I heard no bells.

Listen closely this Saturday evening.

If the Little Brass Bell can resound all the way to southeast Michigan (where the papers never report on D3 teams other then a line or two on MIAA teams), I will be well and truly impressed!

[lmitzel]

Gregory, I'm with you.  Little Brass What?

BELL, Ypsi, BELL. 🔔
Something of your's thats been rung a time or two too many! 

Come on everyone knows the story---it starts with a farmer and his two sons.  Both wanted to go to college, so they flipped a coin and the winner got to attend NCC, the loser had to go to Wheaton (this correct version appears on NCC's website).  Someone else can pick it up from there.

And seeing as Wheaton doesn't have a Little Brass Bell section on their website the story must be true.

I'd feel a little better about having the Bell this year should NCC win. Having it the last ten and a half months has felt really hollow.

[Kovo]

Gregory, I'm with you.  Little Brass What?

BELL, Ypsi, BELL. 🔔
Something of your's thats been rung a time or two too many! 

Come on everyone knows the story---it starts with a farmer and his two sons.  Both wanted to go to college, so they flipped a coin and the winner got to attend NCC, the loser had to go to Wheaton (this correct version appears on NCC's website).  Someone else can pick it up from there.

And seeing as Wheaton doesn't have a Little Brass Bell section on their website the story must be true.

I'd feel a little better about having the Bell this year should NCC win. Having it the last ten and a half months has felt really hollow.

You are correct sir.  A big part of me says that a CCIW Championship and bringing the Bell home is better than a second round playoff win----unless you make it to the Stagg Bowl.  But a another part of me keeps hearing the old Bobby Bowden line---that is, "the last game WAS the big game".

[Gregory Sager]

Gregory, I'm with you.  Little Brass What?

BELL, Ypsi, BELL. 🔔
Something of your's thats been rung a time or two too many! 

Well, true.

But I'm starting to wonder about cause and effect.  The first Saturday of every month the tornado sirens go off at noon.  Yesterday, on a clear-blue, beautiful day, they sounded.  Not more than ten minutes later, out of no lead-up, we got 50-mile an hour wind gusts!  Only lasted less than a minute, but freaky as hell!  Fortunately, no thunder!

Fortunately, I heard no bells.

We had the Thor Guard go off at Holmgren on Saturday afternoon. The Thor Guard is a siren mounted to the roof of the Holmgren fieldhouse that goes off if there is lightning within a ten-mile radius of the stadium. It's loud enough to wake the dead. The first half of Saturday's soccer match between North Park and Augustana was played in a torrential downpour, with strong winds blowing the rain (and the soccer ball) strongly from out of the south. While the rain and wind let up considerably in the second half, the Thor Guard went off with 13:50 left to play in the match, which suspended play and cleared the stadium (except for those of us in the Holmgren press box, which is a Faraday cage and is thus impervious to lightning strikes). There's supposed to be a thirty-minute wait from the last detected lightning strike until the Thor Guard sounds the all-clear, which is also in keeping with the CCIW's official Lightning and Inclement Weather Policy. But, according to that CCIW policy, head coaches have the ability to terminate a contest if it has achieved the required length or score during a lightning delay. Therefore, since Augustana was losing 4-0 and hadn't even achieved a single shot on goal yet, Augie head coach Mick Regan elected not to play the final 13:50, putting his team on the bus and heading back to Rock Island after conceding defeat to 17th-ranked NPU.

OK, Chuck got to tell his siren story (which I enjoyed), and I got to tell mine. That's only fair. Frankly, I couldn't care less about any bell, siren, klaxon, foghorn, or other warning/informational noisemaker located in DuPage County, regardless of the size or age of the device*, and I doubt that any of the rest of us from the seven CCIW schools not involved in a contest for the annual possession of one of such device cares, either. But this is the page to talk about said contest, so that's what's going to happen. I'd just like to invite anybody else to join Chuck and I and tell your favorite story about a bell, a siren, a klaxon, a foghorn, or somesuch, while we're waiting out the interminable hype among the NCC and Wheaton people (if the Wheaton people even bother this year, that is).

(*The clock buzzers in Faganel Hall, Gregory Arena, and King Arena are exceptions to my lack of interest.)

[iwu70]

Greg, I think the most exciting "bell" in IWU history was actually one from ISU.  I say no more.

We have a flame and a torch, as you all have heard earlier -- along with Tommy Titan strolling the stands. 

IWU'70

[badgerwarhawk]

My bell story:

I stopped at the deli in the local Sentry grocery store and no one was behind the counter or in sight.  So I picked up the tiny bell they have sitting there and furiously clanged it several times.  Lo and behold there was actually someone there who I hadn't been able to see beforehand.  She promptly came to the counter.  I bought a sandwich roll, two slices of all beef summer and two slices of baby Swiss cheese for lunch.  Without that bell I may have gone hungry.

[Gregory Sager]

My bell story:

I stopped at the deli in the local Sentry grocery store and no one was behind the counter or in sight.  So I picked up the tiny bell they have sitting there and furiously clanged it several times.  Lo and behold there was actually someone there who I hadn't been able to see beforehand.  She promptly came to the counter.  I bought a sandwich roll, two slices of all beef summer and two slices of baby Swiss cheese for lunch.  Without that bell I may have gone hungry.

Mmmm ... sandwich roll ...

[AndOne]

When I was a kid growing up in Connecticut, the moms would ring a cow bell when they wanted us to come home for dinner. 🐄 🔔 😊

[iwu70]

We also have the Hedding College Bell, on the south side of our Quad, in honor of the merger of Hedding College with IWU, in the 30s, if memory serves.  Minor Myers, jr. when President also rescued the large pillars from Hedding College, stored in a local farmer's barn, now erected as a gateway edifice on the south side of the campus -- found and erected there during Myers' term in the late 90s, early 2000s.  My parents were students at IWU just after the time Hedding College became part of Illinois Wesleyan.  Other "bells" --I'll keep looking.  We now have bells, presumably electronic ones, that ring out from the Evelyn Chapel. 

Hear ends the history lesson.

'70

[ncc_fan]

We also have the Hedding College Bell, on the south side of our Quad, in honor of the merger of Hedding College with IWU, in the 30s, if memory serves.  Minor Myers, jr. when President also rescued the large pillars from Hedding College, stored in a local farmer's barn, now erected as a gateway edifice on the south side of the campus -- found and erected there during Myers' term in the late 90s, early 2000s.  My parents were students at IWU just after the time Hedding College became part of Illinois Wesleyan.  Other "bells" --I'll keep looking.  We now have bells, presumably electronic ones, that ring out from the Evelyn Chapel. 

Hear ends the history lesson.

'70

Here's more on Hedding College, including photos

[Gregory Sager]

The carillon bells in the cupola of North Park's Old Main have played hymns on the hour every hour between six a.m. and midnight for many generations. But back in the day, they also played Jewish songs shortly before sundown on Friday afternoons. This was done by North Park as a courtesy to the neighbors to call them to their Sabbath -- the North Park and Albany Park neighborhoods were heavily Jewish from the World War One era into the 1960s -- even though very few Jewish students ever enrolled at NPC. I have always liked that fact; to me, serving neighbors of another faith in that manner represents something notably Christian about the school.

[Kovo]

The carillon bells in the cupola of North Park's Old Main have played hymns on the hour every hour between six a.m. and midnight for many generations. But back in the day, they also played Jewish songs shortly before sundown on Friday afternoons. This was done by North Park as a courtesy to the neighbors to call them to their Sabbath -- the North Park and Albany Park neighborhoods were heavily Jewish from the World War One era into the 1960s -- even though very few Jewish students ever enrolled at NPC. I have always liked that fact; to me, serving neighbors of another faith in that manner represents something notably Christian about the school.

While I find some of these bell tales interesting (and some not so much), there is only one Little Brass Bell that stands as the premier traveling trophy between CCIW schools.  And, this discussion solidifies my belief that all of the other institutions not participating in THE game are more than a wee bit jealous. 

[Gregory Sager]

You mean envious. And ... nope.

[iwu70]

Thanks for the wonderful pictures of Hedding College and the bell, now on the south side of the IWU Quad, in front of McPherson Theatre.

Very good neighborly point, Gregory.

'70

[Mr. Ypsi]

We also have the Hedding College Bell, on the south side of our Quad, in honor of the merger of Hedding College with IWU, in the 30s, if memory serves.  Minor Myers, jr. when President also rescued the large pillars from Hedding College, stored in a local farmer's barn, now erected as a gateway edifice on the south side of the campus -- found and erected there during Myers' term in the late 90s, early 2000s.  My parents were students at IWU just after the time Hedding College became part of Illinois Wesleyan.  Other "bells" --I'll keep looking.  We now have bells, presumably electronic ones, that ring out from the Evelyn Chapel. 

Hear ends the history lesson.

'70

Since you were discussing bells, was this a deliberate pun?  If so, good one.  If not, Dr. Freud will see you at 10 tomorrow morning.  Something about bells and your mother.