Contrary to some beliefs, the power to withhold a release from a student-athlete is vested in an athletic director. Amidst the recent developments with freshman basketball player Mike Lipnisky and NIU's Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell, NCAA legislative...

For at least one Huskie baseball player, Thursday's season-ending doubleheader at Western Illinois (1 p.m.) will mark the end of a very short NIU career. Jeff Carnes fulfilled one year of NIU baseball and must call it quits after the twin bill. The only...

Defending their three-time North Star Conference Championship trophy will be the name of the game for the NIU softball team on Friday. The Huskies, who joined the NSC in 1988, have held the title every year since. If they can keep the streak alive this...

Providence College assistant coach Larry Shyatt arrived in DeKalb Wednesday night to begin formal interviews for the vacant NIU head-coaching job. Shyatt, along with Louisiana Tech head coach Jerry Loyd, who left DeKalb late Wednesday night after his...

There's no doubt in the mind of veteran NIU men's golf coach Jack Pheanis about the high caliber of competition teeing up Friday and Saturday at the Oak Club of Genoa. This weekend's Fifth Annual Miller Genuine Draft Midwestern Invitational features a...

If it's possible to neither pass nor fail a test, the NIU baseball team might qualify after Tuesday's 10-5 loss to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to the scheduled doubleheader (only one game was played due to the soggy conditions at Wisconsin),...

For NIU's softball squad, ending the season on a winning note was considered to be a necessity. The Huskies somewhat fulfilled that necessity by gaining a split at home Tuesday afternoon with non-conference foe Western Illinois. The Huskies ended the...

If NIU were to be blackballed by the Public League, as some coaches have suggested, it would lose its main source of players in the last few years. Of the Huskies' rostered players entering this season, six players had Chicago Public League ties, including...

According to several prominent Chicago Public League coaches, NIU is going to have a hard time recruiting basketball players from their league for the foreseeable future. In the wake of published reports that named three out-of-state coaches as the finalists...

An NIU athlete's freedom apparently has been denied by Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell. Freshman standout Mike Lipnisky, a member of the men's basketball team, said he requested a "release from Grant-and-Aid" from O'Dell on Monday for transfer reasons....

It was almost a perfect ending for the NIU men's tennis team's long season. The tennis team joined the men's basketball team and the soccer team as Mid-Continent Conference champions in the 1990-1991 season. Also, team captain Erik Andersch was voted...

Joe "Spanky" McFarland will pull out the season-long measuring stick when his gang travels to take on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Tuesday. The first-year NIU baseball coach realizes that his club has won 10 of its last 15 contests, but also rationalizes...