NIU alumni have been forgotten for years, but now the Huskie athletic department has begun a full operation to win their support.

All NIU coaches have been occupying the Huskie Stadium press box in an attempt to contact former NIU athletes for donations. Although the NIU coaches are soliciting money for their respective programs, they feel the money is not the important issue in their effort.

“I think the most important issue is getting the alumni reinvolved with Huskie athletics,” said Charles Merzbacher, mens’ tennis coach who spent Wednesday night in the pressbox.

“We want to start something we can be proud of. Being an alumni is like being a part of a fraternity. You go through an experience of a program and you should get something positive out of it and be involved in throughout.”

Merzbacher is a University of Minnesota graduate and said he has and will continue to donate regularly to the UM athletic department along with his contributions to NIU.

NIU Athletic Director Gerald O’Dell said the plan to restart and regain alumni support began last year when they started gathering a list of addresses and phone numbers of former NIU athletes.

O’Dell said the project has four main objectives:

opening up communication with former NIU athletes,

updating the information on these former athletes, asking what sport they played, and keeping their addresses and phone numbers updated,

welcoming them back as the members of the Varsity Club while revamping and reorganizing the club, and

asking them to contribute to their respective sports.

Some universities could not operate without alumni support, but NIU abandoned its alumni a long time ago and is now trying to win them back.

“The former NIU athletes were forgotten and some of them were upset to hear from us. I think that we have to prove something to them first. We have to prove that we’re serious about having them reinvolved,” Merzbacher said.

Most coaches agreed the toughest part of their job was asking for donations just after getting acquainted with the former athletes, but NIU soccer coach Willy Roy said he has no problem with soliciting donations.

“My honest feeling is that we have to do something for our alumni first. Once they feel confident about their relationship with us, I have no problem with asking them for money,” Roy said.

“If they were scholarship athletes and they have had a good experience at Northern, they should give something back. I expect the kids we have now to donate at least $100 per year after they graduate.”

This attitude seems to have paid off for the soccer team as Roy and his helpers raised $800 for their sport. The bulk of this sum came from Bob Gros, who played soccer for NIU 25 years ago. Gros pledged $500 to Roy’s program.

Not all the responses are this positive. NIU’s alienation of its alumni has left a bitter feeling with some of them and they did not want anything to do with this new effort to gather their support.

“I think they would have liked to have heard from us earlier. I’m sure they’re disappointed about not having been contacted in the past, but the important thing now is that we are doing it now. I think that in general, most people have been pleased to hear from us,” O’Dell said.

“This doesn’t start and end here. We’re planning a major reunion during Homecoming weekend next fall and each sport is planning a minor reunion of their own. We’re planning to have events involving our alumni throughout the year,” O’Dell said.

This seems to be a beginning of NIU’s quest to regain alumni support, but it has only begun to scratch the surface. O’Dell said about 4,000 athletes have competed at NIU, but only about 1,700 make up the list the coaches have.

“A lot of this job is tracking the people down. Some of these people have gotten married and moved away and we have to try to track them down,” NIU volleyball coach Pete Waite said.