Administrators, coaches and athletes involved in NIU athletics have long been maligned for the lack of Huskie successes. More often than not, it is deserved. With another mediocre year well on its way toward completion, the nicest compliment one can make about NIU is that it’s consistent—consistently lousy.

Of course this athletic program does have some pluses, such as the men’s gymnastics team and a pretty decent graduation rate among its athletes. But where it really counts—football, men’s basketball and fundraising—the Huskies have talked big but have only sporadic statistics to back their claims.

When both basketball teams played at Toledo, women’s coach Jane Albright talked about building a program when she was interviewed at halftime of the men’s game on WDEK. Building? That word is constantly spewed by NIU coaches and athletic directors every year when the teams go sour. It’s also a huge rationalization for one of the biggest money-wasters NIU has.

Occasionally, the Huskies seem to be on the verge of something promising, but then they quickly return to the safer waters of losing records.

The men’s basketball team is a prime example. As the 1985-86 season reached a conclusion, the future—particularly with Kenny Battle on the team—looked bright. Two years later, that team has been flushed down the toilet. The team has few players that really care, a coach who refuses to make adjustments or realize his coaching philosophy might be the problem, and an athletic administration that has done little to rectify the problem. NIU hasn’t had two consecutive solid seasons, win-wise, in basketball since the early 1970s.

Football? Same problem. And then a source tells me that NIU offered more money to Lee Corso after Bill Mallory left after the California Bowl championship in 1983 than it offered to Mallory to stay. That seems pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Another common theme NIU brags about is potential—especially with the Chicago market. Men’s basketball coach Jim Rosborough once called NIU the best-kept secret in the Midwest. Sure, a 30,000-seat football stadium and DeKalb’s location between Chicago and Rockford are nice, but what has NIU done with those advantages? Very little. The athletic administration has done little to actively promote its product outside the inside of its own offices.

Clearly, Gerald O’Dell, the recently crowned athletic director, has to totally overhaul an athletic program that becomes more pathetic with each passing year. But so far he is shying away from the most important move many feel he has to make: removing the deadwood or incompetents from the athletic hierarchy. He apparently has ignored a recommendation in the athletic department’s internal review last spring that the new director hold a search for new assistant ADs.

Instead, he fired the volleyball coach—and made it seem like the coach liked the idea. He also let the former promotions director, Guy Price, find out on his own that he was out of a job. O’Dell could use a refresher course on human relations.

The athletic department has never been able to pay its own way and thus has had to rely on athletic fees and general revenue funds from the university’s budget for support. Fee increases from the last two years were supposed to eliminate the more than $400,000 deficit, but didn’t, so don’t be surprised when Huskie athletics comes looking for more.

With state funding becoming ever more scarce, O’Dell had better forget about succeeding in all sports. He needs to decide whether football or basketball is the best outlet. If it is basketball, which is less expensive and easier to make successful inroads in, then football should be dropped to Division I-AA or less.

Winning also would help because ticket sales—translated as “dollars”—are plummeting faster than Huskie team records.