Reasons for and against football jersey retirement were the fuel for the Northern Star’s week of Nov. 14, 1973.

After Huskie fullback Mark Kellar’s final home game against Western Illinois University, his jersey was retired and buried in a time capsule near Altgeld Hall. In the Letters to the Editor installation, junior journalism major Rod Ossowski defended the honor. Ossowski was offended that Northern Star columnist Gregg Cebrzynski deemed the event a “farce.”

“You say retiring a uniform ‘happens too often in athletics,’ yet in NIU’s 75 years, Mark has been the first to gain that honor,” Ossowski said. “I guess it’s your opinion that football is big business and players are only workers.”

Kellar was the first of four NIU players to be honored by retiring a jersey.

Students like Ossowski argued a student’s positive achievement should be appreciated rather than ridiculed.

Not all NIU students spat at Cebrzynski’s view. Sophomore forestry major Dan Wieczorek agreed.

“You’re not the only one who thinks this is a farce,” Wieczorek said. Those agreeing with Wieczorek didn’t understand the need for retiring a college jersey, saying there were other university accomplishments more deserving of recognition.

Athletics weighed heavily upon Nov. 14 news. Women’s scholarship policies were debated during the first Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women Delegate Assembly in Kansas City, Mo. Regarded as “the most pressing issue on college campuses,” 121 delegates opposed women’s scholarships, with 29 approving votes and 22 abstentions.

“The delegates made it very clear they were voting on their own consciences and not necessarily the institution’s position,” said Lou Jean Moyer, NIU’s physical education associate professor.

Despite NIU’s right to establish its own policies, a Florida sexual discrimination suit threatened to change the university’s decision not to give grants. Moyer feared what outside pressure would mean to NIU’s organization of athletic conferences.

“For me and for Northern this would be poor,” Moyer said. “We would like to play schools that give us the best competition in each sport.”

This decision was to be determined by the Ethics Committee of the AIAW.

Although eight days premature of the 10th anniversary, the Star devoted pages to John F. Kennedy’s Nov. 22, 1963 assassination. In the article “Profs wonder: Did the dream die before he did?” debate ensued over whether Kennedy’s principles were “empty” or “motivational.”

“His administration is viewed as a continuing base for the cold war that bred little hot wars, one which claimed the life of U.N. Secretary General Hammarskjold on his last peace mission,” said Star journalist Ted Knutson.

Kennedy was blamed for maintaining status-quos of the Truman-Eisenhower administration rather than being the world-changing pragmatist admired by remaining supporters.

Some believers remained faithful to Kennedy. Dr. Harry Finkelstein, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense under the late Lyndon B. Johnson, defended Kennedy for pushing values similar to Finkelstein’s. Finkelstein said “it [is] hard to turn my back on Kennedy because he believed in so many of the things I believe in.”