The 1990 NIU Softball season hasn't even started yet and the accolades are already coming in. Senior physical education major, and Huskie softball catcher, Julie Sexton will be presented with her 1990 GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America award during the halftime...

NIU soccer coach Willy Roy's 1989 squad accomplished a feat that has always been elusive in the world of sports: they retired as champions. Last season's 14-4-2 mark, a record for most NIU soccer victories, was capped off by a 2-1 win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee...

HELP WANTED: Baseball players. Some travel, no heavy lifting required. EOE. Contact Spanky McFarland at NIU. New NIU baseball coach Spanky McFarland hasn't yet resorted to taking out the above ad, but that's not because he doesn't need the help. McFarland,...

The Northern Star proudly presents some mid-summer column stuffers for your reading pleasure. Enjoy. Former Huskie standout Ted "The Mad Stork" Hennings made the news recently while participating in the Chicago Bears training camp in Platteville, Wis....

The fastballs will not pop as loudly, or be clobbered so easily. The 6-4-3 might be just the 6-4. The uniforms baggier, the tempers hotter. New NIU head baseball Coach Spanky McFarland has no scholarships to offer the young men who will fill the new program's...

University of South Florida assistant coach Joe "Spanky" McFarland has been picked to lead the revival of the NIU baseball program which was cut at the end of the 1982 season. The decision is subject to Board of Regents approval. In his 13 coaching years,...

The final chapter in the saga of NIU's mens' gymnastic team was written on Saturday. And the closing line can be summed up in one word: ironic. Genaro Severino, the last Huskie gymnast still competing for NIU in the final year of the program, pulled his...

I was sitting in my favorite DeKalb watering hole (I was in a watering hole because I hate bars), the other day when my friend Willie McGruff walked in. Yes, McGruff is related to the crime dog but refuses to discuss it, something about a pending paternity...

If Huskie Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell were a comedian, his sense of timing wouldn't get him a ticket out of First City, let alone a gig at Second City. There are no good times to announce the impending elimination of a sport, but on the scale of better...

As expected, Huskie Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell recommended to the Athletic Board Wednesday that men's gymnastics be eliminated for lack of support and fiscal responsibility. "Regardless of emotion or sentimentality, we need to deal with the facts,"...

On Feb. 11, 1979, a sporting event in Chick Evans Field House held the attention of more than 5000 human beings. Not until Kenny Battle bounced off backboards from 1984-86 for the NIU basketball team would so many people focus on one individual and his...

After an eight-year off-season, the Huskie baseball program recently threw out its first pitch with nationwide classified ads for head coaching prospects with Division I college experience. NIU Athletic Director Gerald O'Dell said since the announcement...