Local support for the Huskies will be more visible next week, when an NIU football schedule will be put up on the corner of Lincoln Highway and First Street.

The sign will cost about $8,000 and will be paid for by resources set aside by the athletic

department April.

Christian Spears, deputy director of Athletics, said the sign will make city residents aware of the Huskie presence in their town.

Spears said the city has ordinances that deal with the size of signs and how long they can be up. Usually, Spears said, signs are only allowed to be up for two weeks. To gain an exception to this, Spears went to DeKalb’s planning and zoning committee, which granted permission for the sign to be up year-round.

“It will extend the campus community to downtown,” Spears said. “A lot of people think our campus starts on Annie Glidden Road, but this will extend the game day experience and atmosphere to further extend the partnership between downtown and the university.”

Taylor Noon, marketing graduate assistant for the Athletic Department, said the sign will be up before the Sept. 27 home game and will list the Huskies’ home game schedule.

“We’re using the sign to promote our 21-game winning streak,” Noon said. “We wanted to put the sign in that section downtown because there’s not really much downtown in terms of Huskie Athletic support.”

Noon said the high-traffic area was chosen in order to provide maximum awareness and support of Huskie athletics.

Noon said after the football season is over, the university plans to turn the space over to the city to use as it wishes.

“Should the intercollegiate athletics department come up with an idea, we’ll put up a mural to coincide with the communiversity goal,” said principal planner Derek Hiland at the City Council meeting when the ordinance was approved.

Hiland said there was no rebuttal or argument with the planning and zoning committee and it loved the idea of embracing the communiversity.