It’s a busy time for sports here in Madison. The football team has, as fellow sports editor Michael Bleach put it, a “must win” game against Purdue Saturday. The men’s hockey team takes on New Hampshire at the Kohl Center this weekend and men’s basketball tips off next week.
But the results of all those games are pretty inconsequential compared to what’s on the line for the men’s and women’s soccer teams.
You probably didn’t know it, but both soccer teams could potentially capture Big Ten Titles by the end of next week. The real must win game Saturday is the men’s team’s match at Penn State, a victory being crucial if it wants to win the conference. The women need things to fall their way in addition to winning at Northwestern Monday to capture a title.
It’s kind of a wonder this hasn’t become a bigger deal, considering the mediocrity both teams have displayed over the past few years. Women’s head coach Paula Wilkins was 15-20-2 before this year, including 5-15 in Big Ten games. Men’s head coach Todd Yeagley is in his first year at the helm, but his predecessor Jeff Rohrman went just under the .500 mark as UW’s coach and 12-24-6 in conference play.
In 2009 though, Wilkins has her team tied for second in the conference, with a 4-1-4 mark in Big Ten play. A win against the Wildcats next week would give her as many league wins in 2009 as she got her first two years at UW. While it’s unlikely UW takes the regular season title, Wisconsin could get a crack at being the Big Ten tournament champs — which would be a big deal, considering the Badgers haven’t even made the tournament since 2007 and haven’t won a Big Ten Tournament game since 2005.
The men’s team has a better situation, as it currently leads the conference with nine points. If the Badgers win at Penn State, the only way they lose the regular season title is if Northwestern wins both its remaining games against Michigan and Michigan State. With the amount of parity in the conference this year, it’s not unreasonable to expect the Wildcats to at least tie one of those games.
Most of the campus will remain unaware and uncaring, however, regardless of how the season ends for either team. Soccer gets about as much attention as girls who don’t show any skin on Halloween.
And it’s not just soccer; it’s all of UW’s non-revenue sports. To be more specific, that includes everything that isn’t football, men’s hockey and basketball.
For instance, remember how the women’s hockey team won the national championship last season? Other people apparently don’t, seeing how there’s little uproar about how a team that went 32-4-5 in 2008-2009 has yet to even put together consecutive wins through six games this season. Granted, they lost all-universe goaltender Jessie Vetter to graduation and temporarily lost forwards Hilary Knight and Meghan Duggan to the U.S. national team. But Vetter, Knight and Duggan, as talented as they are, didn’t win that NCAA title on their own. Shouldn’t we be a little more peeved at the Badgers’ slow start?
But that’s how it goes with non-revenue sports. Success breeds fame, and while the women’s hockey team has been Wisconsin’s most successful team over the past few years, it will apparently take a few more titles before people care. Even Yeagley says that winning can fix a lot of things in that respect.
“I think with more success, more students and the student body will understand what the program is about and what we’re trying to do,” he said after UW’s 1-0 loss to Northern Illinois last night. “I’m encouraged that will happen with some time; it doesn’t happen overnight. Having some success in the Big Ten, and on, will help that.”
So should Wilkins’ and Yeagley’s squads end up with conference titles, don’t expect to hear much about it. Maybe if they can repeat these performances in the years to come, they can join the women’s hockey team, crew teams and men’s track team (which have all won national championships) in the obscurity that comes with being a successful non-rev sport.
Adam is a junior majoring in journalism. Have a favorite non-revenue sport that could use more publicity? -Email him at [email protected].
