The 2026 Northwestern Essays, #6--How Traditions Are Made and Kept, Or Not

On Saturday, Northwestern (3-1) plays Ball State (1-4) at the new Ryan Field in Evanston at 12:30 pm on the BigTen Network.  Ball State is located in Muncie, Indiana, which I happened to visit a couple of weeks ago with my wife and daughter.  Ball State is a member of the Mid-American Conference (the "MAC"), which is considered to be at least a level down from the BigTen conference.  For this reason, Northwestern has scheduled Homecoming for this game.  

I want to talk about Homecoming for the majority of this post, but before we get to that we need to discuss last week's game against Penn State.  If you didn't see, Northwestern won 34-13, and it was not nearly that close.  The eye-catching number here is 413 yards rushing for NU, versus 48 for Penn State.  Part of that is that Penn State was behind the whole game and had to pass, but 413 yards rushing is still a crazy number.

Northwestern has won a number of games in my time watching the team, including wins against prestige programs in the BigTen.  But usually those wins are close games--usually low scoring, but also a couple of shoot-outs in the Randy Walker era.  This kind of beat down is not really a thing.  In 2014, a talented but bafflingly inconsistent Northwestern team beat Penn State in James Franklin's first season (coming off of the Joe Paterno/Jerry Sandusky punishment) 29-6, technically still the biggest margin of victory in the series for NU.  But that game was 14-6 going into the 4th quarter, so it was much more competitive than this one.  I also do not remember this game at all, whereas I suspect this one is going to stick around for a bit.

Basically, I think Northwestern is pretty good.  I said in Essay #1 that 8-4 would be a major accomplishment for this team.  I now think that would still be a major accomplishment but is more realistic.  I also think that, based on the last two games, that we have a shot to upset anyone on the schedule, including the road games at Oregon and at Ohio State.  I am not saying we will do that, but I think we could.  And then we are talking about crazy things like the College Football Playoff.

Just for the record, I fully and completely support nicknaming the new stadium "The Library" as I saw circulating on social media (in response to the Colorado players joking that the atmosphere at the stadium "sounded like a library").  I can imagine the hype video showing people in the library transitioning to the noise of the student section.  I will be referring to the new Ryan Field as "The Library" going forward.

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Homecoming at Northwestern reminds me of my time with Northwestern Delta Chi.  Delta Chi is a national fraternity that was originally founded as a fraternity for people in law school.  Back in the late 1800s, it transitioned into a general undergraduate fraternity.  This decision caused some of the chapters to shut down, including the chapter at Northwestern.  This situation endured until January of 1997, when Delta Chi was re-established at Northwestern.

I had no particular inclination to join a fraternity when I went to college.  I remember getting the flyer in the mail, saying that there was going to be meeting of people who were interested at some dinner spot on campus.  I don't really remember why I decided to go, but I did.  It was a pretty fun time, and I walked back to my dorm with Jason (mentioned in the opening post of this series).  He asked me "so you think you are going to do this?" and I said something like "yeah, I think so."  I don't have a clear memory of why I said that or what made me make that decision.  But, I did.  Within a month, we were a thing, Northwestern Delta Chi.

The biggest lesson I learned from my time with Northwestern Delta Chi was the degree to which institutions run on institutional knowledge.  Starting something, anything, from scratch involves figuring out a bunch of things that seem obvious in hindsight but are not at all intuitive if you are in the midst of it.  Perhaps the best example involved our first football game tailgate.  At the time, most of the fraternities would tailgate in the parking lot of Ryan Field prior to the game.  As I mentioned in my previous post, it is about a mile from the northern end of campus (where Delta Chi fraternity house #1 was located) to the stadium.  This raises a question--how do you get your tailgate equipment (grill, food, music set up, etc.) to the parking lot?  In general, this is done via automobile transportation, but it is was unusual to have a car at Northwestern.  So, what to do?  The answer that other fraternities landed on was "rent a van for the day."  But this didn't occur to us.  So, we utilized the one person with a (very small) car combined with walking our gear down Central Street.  I have a very clear memory of carrying our grill back from the tailgate while the other fraternities were zooming past us in their U-Haul vans.  It was a lesson learned, albeit one that seemed pretty humiliating at the time.

The other funny and memorable Northwestern Delta Chi story has to do with our first big house party.  In that same Fall of 1997 we got our fraternity house, and we wanted to announce our presence on campus with a big party.  Big parties need a big theme, and since this was Fall 1997 the decision was made that the theme would be Ska.  Sure.  So, we needed to find some Ska bands to play at the party.  We found two, the names of which will stick with me long after I can't remember my own name--Animal Chin and Dr. Manette.  Great, we were set.  Except the night before the party, one of the two bands cancelled (I think it was Animal Chin, but I'm not 100% sure).  For some reason, the prevailing opinion was that this was a catastrophe that would ruin the party.  So our fraternity president announced that he would go on the Internet (remember, 1997--that was an innovative idea at the time) and find us another Ska band.  And he did--Swing Set.

So, about thirty minutes before the party, we got a knock at our door.  Standing in front of us were five middle school kids.  Yes, this was Swing Set, playing their first gig.  This resulted in an emergency meeting--can we let 13 year olds play at a fraternity party?  We decided it would be a dick move not to pay these kids, so we let them play.  So, band #1 was a bit of a rocky road, but not to worry because the other, presumably of age, band was on its way.  Except the other band never showed up--until about 2:30 in the morning after everyone had left and we had gone to bed.  They said they got lost, but that was obviously BS and we did not pay them.  So, our first house party had only one Ska band consisting entirely of 13 year olds.  Not a rousing success, but an elite story to tell.  Later, when the video game Rock Band was a thing, all of the bands I created were named either Animal Chin, Dr. Manette, or Swing Set.  

But my major Homecoming memory has to do with our partners.  For my junior year, I was elected Alumni Relations Officer, which put me in charge of planning Homecoming.  It would be difficult to imagine a job I was less suited for (especially then), but that was the assignment and that's what I did. My job was to find a sorority to partner with to make a float.  So I first went to the sororities that we had done events with in the past.  They turned me down, mostly because (1) there were more fraternities than sororities, and (2) we were the new kid on the block and all of these sororities had established relationships with other fraternities.  So I asked every one of the sororities that had houses on campus--all said no.  

I wish I could remember who suggested that I reach out to the historically African-American sororities, because I am pretty confident it wasn't my idea.  The African-American sororities didn't have houses on campus, so they were mostly forgotten except in their own circles.  When I asked Delta Sigma Theta, they were a bit surprised by the proposal but said yes.  So we made a joint Homecoming float for Homecoming 1998.  At the time, I saw it as kind of a face-saving move--my task was to get a Homecoming partner, and I did, albeit an unorthodox one.   The next year, my predecessor asked them again, in part because it was the line of least resistance and in part because everyone had a good time working together in '98.  

Many years after I left NU, I happened to look at a copy of the Delta Chi magazine.  It had an article about the hallowed tradition of Northwestern Delta Chi doing Homecoming with Delta Sigma Theta.  There were quotes about how the members loved working with an African-American sorority, how it was unique and different and set the fraternity apart on campus.  The article even framed it as NU Delta Chi being progressive and woke for having that relationship.  The truth, as someone who was there at the founding, was that Northwestern Delta Chi started doing Homecoming with Delta Sigma Theta because I could not get any of the other (read--mostly white) sororities to partner with us.  It was not an act of racial reconciliation.  

But I don't think the "original intent" matters at all.  Over time, the tradition took on new meaning as it was reproduced and re-inscribed by new people in new circumstances.  And that is really, really cool.  It's not every day that you can see how a tradition grows and develops.  Events are like the seed of a pearl, onto which layers and layers are placed around it to form a gem.  Those guys, I assume based on the article, took pride in doing something different for Homecoming. That makes the tradition real, no matter its origin.        

In 2020, Northwestern Delta Chi shut down.  As best as I can tell from what I can find online, the house more or less voted to disband, alongside a couple of other fraternities and sororities.  It looks like Greek Life at NU is far smaller and less relevant than it was during my time. Honestly, that's fine.  Traditions have a shelf-life.  It isn't obvious in the moment when a tradition has passed its prime, but it will happen to all traditions.  That's doesn't invalidate the tradition for the time it was vibrant and relevant.  It doesn't make my story any less relevant to me.  If the tradition of homecoming with Delta Sigma Theta meant something to people, that isn't negated by the fact this is no longer a thing. Traditions do not need to endure forever to be traditions worth remembering fondly.