It’s 8:10 p.m. and the lights of Huskie Stadium illuminate a crisp fall evening. The echoes of NIU’s 24-8 victory over Eastern Michigan are long gone. Left in the wake of empty cups and used paper plates is a “family” of tailgaters toasting 40 years of NIU football.

There is a romance in the way they warmly recant stories from the days of the old, shoddy east-side bleachers, scantily populated with 50 or so visiting fans. On cold, windy days, the visiting team and their fans must have felt like an iceberg wandering through the Arctic Circle.

Don Sitarz, Frank Oles, Mike Fienstein, and William Gruzynski graduated in 1970, and as a group have only missed “about 3 games.”

“We got here at 10:58 this morning,” Oles said. “We’ll leave when they kick us out. We are always the last ones out; it’s always that way. We are here every weekend.”

Several lean years of NIU football haven’t dampened their spirits, but each exuberantly admitted the beer tasted better after a win.

“When we first came out here,” Sitarz said, “we had the run of the stadium, our kids played on the field, and after the game we went to press conferences. Not now; they’d throw us out of there!”

Through rain, sleet, wind, cold and 40 years, these guys were here with food, drink and the best cheesecake in the lot – sometimes all by themselves. But they agree the bond they’ve shared cheering and celebrating is priceless.

They proudly describe their connection – created by their mutual link to NIU – on the same level as any “big school” like Notre Dame or Michigan.

“Don has gotten so many people involved,” Gruzynski said. “He’ll see people and grab them saying, ‘Hey, you are a Northern grad, get up here, we tailgate every weekend.’”

Sitarz and Oles recall meeting for the first time as roommates in the brand new Grant North; “Room 1073 B,” they say in unison. Forty years of fond memories are contained in laughter that infectiously fills the night sky.

IF YOU KNEW THEN WHAT YOU KNOW NOW…

Seated in Row 39 on the southwest side of Huskie Stadium are Brian and Chuck Karabim, brothers who can reel off the gridiron stars of their generation with an adept accuracy so crisp it seemed like the game just took place.

The Karabims were at Huskie Stadium in 1989, the last time NIU beat Toledo.

“If we’d only known then it would be the last time,” the brothers laughed in unison.

Farther back, in 1974, they both agreed that NIU football was suffering through some growing pains.

“They had lots of promise,” Brian Karabim said, “but always fell short. Now they do something.”

The east bleachers were just erected, and the west side stands started to fill in with increased frequency.

The attitude at the time was a “hope that NIU would play well,” rather than an expectation, Chuck said.

After a game they would go to Andy’s Bar and Grille on Lincoln Highway with friends, bantering about offense, defense and special teams just like the students of today.

THE PIZZA VILLA CREW

The “Pizza Villa Crew” is a group of NIU graduates who revel in the fairly recent phenomena of tailgating. After the game, they sat down for an after-hours gathering at their favorite pizza joint: Pizza Villa, 824 W. Lincoln Highway.

Nineteen sixty-nine graduates Alan Kamhi, Jeff Finesilver, R. Scott Ness, and Dan Zaura (‘72), Paul Cipolla (‘71), and NIU Sports Information Director Mike Korcek (‘70) were college students when residence halls were single-sex and female students had an 11 p.m. recidence hall-room curfew.

The crew chat with those in various tents and enjoy the opening of the new Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center. They catch up with Korcek when the game is over and share some lighthearted memories, then take off for Pizza Villa. Their old friend Korcek stays behind to attend to his SID duties in the NIU press box.

Chatting over three extra-large pizzas and pitchers of beer, they paint a different picture of NIU football. There was no tailgating in their day, and almost unfathomable by today’s standards, beer and liquor weren’t sold on Sunday.

“There was no such thing as tailgating,” Zaura said. “We went from our [residence hall] or apartment, and afterwards went home or to the bar. You weren’t allowed to have beer anywhere on campus; you’d be arrested.”

Perhaps tailgating festivities weren’t prominent because the country was at war in Southeast Asia, and being a college student was better than the alternative: being a soldier.

“When we were in college,” Kamhi said, “it was during the Vietnam War, and if we weren’t in college we knew we’d be over there, so it really made you committed.”

“The first time I came up here for Homecoming,” Zaura said, “they had beer and food everywhere. We didn’t think they [allowed] beer on campus. We were shocked.”

When a lone slice of pizza is left and the well has almost run dry, the crew gathers their gear for a trip home. They all say they’ll be back next year.

Of all the pizza joints in all the world…