Bud Nangle served as head Sports Information Director from 1967-1984 after George “Chick” Evans talked Nangle into returning to the school on the brink of major college football arenas. Nangle, along with Evans, was essential to NIU’s initiation into NCAA Division I-A status in 1969 and worked with Bob Brigham to get NIU into the Mid-American Conference in 1973. Nangle pioneered many aspects of sports information at Northern Illinois.

He won the office’s first College Sports Information Directors of America national award in 1970 and expanded NIU’s Office of Sports Information’s coverage of women’s athletics in 1978-79. In 1974, Nangle authored the CoSIDA Code of Ethics, which is the standard for the profession to this day.