Inspiring the name: "Wildcats"

Wallace Abbey of the Chicago Tribune is credited with giving NU's Purple team the nickname "Wildcats" in his November 1924 account of the Northwestern gridders' effort in a close loss to the University of Chicago, coached by the great Amos Alonzo Stagg. Below is Abbey's famous quote from the front page of the Tribune.

It was the fourth quarter of the annual Chicago-Northwestern grid battle.  Football players had not come down from Evanston: wildcats would be a name better suited to Thistlethwaite's boys.  Baker was there, and he was the chief wildcat giving his supreme effort.