FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Son of Tailgater]

Id say that NPU has a pretty good weightroom from what ive heard, but is it up to par with the complex wesleyan, elmhurst or carthage has? I think one of the reasons their recruit numbers are so low is still that lack of a campus atmosphere. You cant compare the NPU campus to elmhurst, auggie, north central or carthage, just to name some of the campuses I have visited.

Carthage has a weight room seperate from the regular weight room but it is nothing impressive. I have been hearing that Carthage is in the works for renovating the current "football" weightroom as well as the visitor locker room and the offices that are not being used over there.

[Son of Tailgater]

I have been trying to stay away from the board because it is still a bit depressing not being able to participate in spring ball and all of the off season activities.

SOT, I think all of us former players still miss it in some way.  For me, the worst time is late summer/early fall when the morning air has a very unique smell of dew covered grass.  That smell is unmistakable.  Now that being said, I think most if not all of us former players who have been away from the game 10 years or more will also tell you, playing flag football can be hard enough on the bones and joints, so that feeling of wanting to put the pads back on is quickly diminished with the realization that doing so may very well lead to a hospital stay.  That's why we post on the board.  We can still talk about how great we'd still be without actually having to prove it.

Devildog29,
+ Karma if I had the ability, and I can't wait to improve the blocking in those flag football leagues 

[Titanwatcher]

Check out the new Chicago Slaughter website, six guys from the CCIW on the Roster and a guy named Brandon Watts who is listed from WIU , but I think it should be NPU.
http://www.chicagoslaughter.com/html/team/2007_roster.htm. Radtke from NCC among others

[dansand]

They also have Craig Kastning coming from Augie. I think he went to Illinois Wesleyan.

[Mugsy]

They also have Craig Kastning coming from Augie. I think he went to Illinois Wesleyan.

Only 2 clear mistakes in 25... not too bad.     Radtke at 255lbs!  Whoa there big fella...

Well, my name's Dewey Oxburger. My friends call me Ox. I dont know if you've noticed, but I got a slight weight problem.

[CardinalAlum]

They also have Craig Kastning coming from Augie. I think he went to Illinois Wesleyan.

Only 2 clear mistakes in 25... not too bad.     Radtke at 255lbs!  Whoa there big fella...

Well, my name's Dewey Oxburger. My friends call me Ox. I dont know if you've noticed, but I got a slight weight problem.

"The Doctor says I swallow a lot of aggression.....along with a lot of pizzas!"

[Gregory Sager]

Any news on the NPU recruiting front by the way???

Would love to hear if they've gotten some help for this season...

NPU's had about seventy visits thus far. The hope is that half or more of the visits will pan out and result in prospects becoming recruits.

All-CCIW senior forward Anthony Lenoir of the basketball version of the Vikings, who is scheduled to graduate in December, is planning to play football in the fall. I don't know how he'll fare, since he hasn't played football since he was a high schooler at Evanston Township HS, but at 6'5, 215 he'll make a big and athletic WR for the Park.

Actually NPU football has had close to 200 visits as of this week.  The new coaching staff is really feeling the positive effects of the new facilities.  With the Holmgren Complex and the new Helwig Center, NPU now boasts the not only some of the finest facilities in the CCIW but in D3 as well.  Maybe the best weight room in all of small college football

The seventy visits were posted on the board in Coach Davis's office. You may be mistaking the number of contacts with the number of campus visits, as the number of contacts was at 153 a week ago and may be up close to 200 by now. NPU has received fifty-some applications thus far from football players, almost all of whom are "targeted" (i.e., specifically recruited by the coaching staff) applicants. I was told by one of the coaches that they are quite pleased with the quality level of these prospective players thus far.

Id say that NPU has a pretty good weightroom from what ive heard, but is it up to par with the complex wesleyan, elmhurst or carthage has?

It's better. NPU now has the best weight room in the conference, bar none. While I can't say that I've been in every weight room in the conference, I've been told that the new facility in Helwig is the CCIW's best by numerous administrators, coaches, and trainers, at least two of whom represent CCIW schools other than North Park. Scott Pethtel, who came to NPU after having served as an assistant coach at several D1 football programs, says that it compares favorably to the weight rooms of a lot of lower-level D1 schools.

I think one of the reasons their recruit numbers are so low is still that lack of a campus atmosphere. You cant compare the NPU campus to elmhurst, auggie, north central or carthage, just to name some of the campuses I have visited.

I have absolutely no idea what you're getting at. What do you mean by "campus atmosphere"?

I got that sense when I visited the campus for the games against NPU.  The campus seems disconected at first glance. It is really the only CCIW school in a true "urban" environment where the space seems a bit cramped.  The athletic complex and nice football field is a couple blocks from the locker rooms and athletic training rooms...it makes for an interesting scene on game day because when we walk back after the game we're side by side with some of the NPU players and fans.

I'm asking the NPU alumni on the board...does it feel like a cramped campus that isn't completly connected?

Yes, it is cramped by CCIW standards, because the land area of the campus is the smallest of the eight schools:

school	acreage
Augustana	115
Carthage	72
Elmhurst	38
Illinois Wesleyan	79
Millikin	70
North Central	56
North Park	30
Wheaton	80

That's only natural, as NPU is located in the city of Chicago; space is at a premium, and land values are outrageously expensive as compared to what they are elsewhere around the CCIW. For example, the houses across N. Albany Avenue from Holmgren Athletic Complex -- which those of you who have visited North Park for football games will recall are very small frame houses on tidy little plots -- would probably sell for at least $500,000 on the open market right now, if not more. The priciness of real estate in the North Park and adjacent North Albany Park neighborhoods, combined with NPU's relative poverty (the school has perennially had the smallest endowment in the CCIW, although North Park is currently jockeying with Carthage for last place somewhere just south of $40m), has kept the campus small.

The lack of large plots of wide-open green space is just a fact of life among urban campuses. DePaul and Loyola are relatively wealthy, yet their campuses are small for the number of students they serve. In fact, DePaul has a smaller campus than does Elmhurst, but it has a student population six times the size of Elmhurst's. UIC's campus is barely twice the size of Augustana's, yet UIC has over 15,000 undergraduates and who knows how many grad students. Heck, Roosevelt University and Columbia College are essentially confined to one large downtown building apiece -- and yet they serve 4,000 and 10,000 students, respectively!

I think that students who are interested in attending a college in an urban setting simply realize that there is less elbow room for everything in the big city, college campuses included. If you need vast tracts of greenery in order to make a place feel like home to you, you probably aren't interested in living in a major city, anyway, much less going to college in one.

For its modest size, North Park really does have an inviting and traditional feel to it. As a Chicago Tribune feature story once put it, North Park looks like "a campus from some small town in Iowa plopped down into the middle of the North Side." This has been greatly enhanced by the addition of a central green space to the northern half of the campus a few years ago, a $3,000,000 landscaping project that gave NPU a genuine quadrangle for the first time ever.

The disconnectedness you speak of, NCC_alum62, is really something that only pertains to the student-athletes who use Holmgren Athletic Complex (football, men's soccer, women's soccer, baseball, and softball teams), because the locker rooms aren't at the complex itself. As you said, the players have to walk two blocks down Foster Avenue to get from the locker rooms to the field. It's hardly an inconvenience, but it does make the athletic experience seem somewhat disconnected in terms of geography. But that's the only aspect of the campus that's really like that, so visitors shouldn't draw any general conclusions about the campus based only upon the fact that they had to walk two blocks from the locker room to the field. In fact, in most respects the opposite is true -- the compactness of the campus means that getting from Point A to Point B is quick and easy.

NPU's urban location makes it an "apples and oranges" comparison to other CCIW schools in a lot of respects. If you're a suburbanite who thinks of the big city in negative terms, you'll undoubtedly find plenty of things about North Park that'll turn you off. If, like I was when I was 18, you're a suburbanite who thinks of the big city as an exciting and interesting place and a great potential learning laboratory, North Park can seem like the ideal place to be -- because it offers the intimacy and familiarity of a small liberal arts college within the confines of a world-class metropolis of three million people.

[Titanwatcher]

They also have Craig Kastning coming from Augie. I think he went to Illinois Wesleyan.

Nice catch Dansand IWU 98-01

[lakeshore]

Well put Greg.  We were also informed that NPU owns the 2nd most "green Space" in the city of Chicago next to the Park district.  And for those of you that haven't wlked through NPU's campus in the spring, summer or fall, it is absolutely amazing.  Beautiful landscapes and quiet "park like" setting make a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city.  It truly is one of the best kept secrets in Chicago.  I hope recruits and their parents take the time to come see what it has to offer.  It seems like a Great time to be at NPU.

By the way the weight room is SPARKLING!  5,000 square feet all Hammer Strength equipment.  Beats NIU and Northwestern

[coachnme]

Elmhurst has a great quarterback recruit coming in!!!

Hey FB2007, who is the recruit coming in?

[lakeshore]

I think its Phil Pedi from Driscoll Catholic.  Hes a solid D3 QB.  State Champ

[coachnme]

Kudos to Elmhurst.   He's got a good arm. 

[CardinalAlum]

Recruiting news out of NCC:

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/dupagestory.asp?id=296579&cc=d&tc=nap&t=Naperville

[79jaybird]

If in fact this rumor about the Driscoll QB going to Elmhurst becomes reality.. .and that is a big If until we see him in a Bluejay uni.. that is a great pickup for EC.  HOWEVER--  We have a solid QB in Kudyba coming back.  I think the most urgent need(s) for Elmhurst right now is to solidify the O and D Lines and patchup the holes left by the vacated Seniors, as well as focus on solidifying a #1 RB. 

Can football start next month? 

[matblake]

It can start this month!!!!!!  if you are interested in NFL Europa anyway.........
http://www.nfleurope.com/schedules