The 2026 Northwestern Essay #5--"My Name is Ozymandias, king of kings"

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

--"Ozymandias", by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1876)

Tonight, Northwestern (2-1) opens its new football stadium against Penn State (3-1).  For the second week in a row, it is the Friday night FOX game that starts at 8 pm Eastern.  Last week, Northwestern gave defending champion Indiana a big time scare, losing 29-23.  This is especially noteworthy given that the NU offense did basically nothing in the first half, so all of that 23 points was in the second half.  On the flip side, Penn State suffered a bad loss at home to Wisconsin, blowing a 17-0 lead and giving up a long touchdown at the end of the game.  This has all the makings of a competitive game--if NU can play the way they played last week, I think NU can beat Penn State.  

OK, let's talk about the new stadium .  The new Ryan Field is built on the site of the old Ryan Field, which in turn was a renovation of Dyche Stadium which had existed on Central Street in Evanston since 1926.  The conversion from Dyche Stadium to Ryan Field #1 was completed in 1996-97, when I was at Northwestern.  For some time, the Delta Chi fraternity at Northwestern had astro turf from the old Dyche Stadium (more specifically a 10 yard line number) hanging in the fraternity house.  Northwestern Delta Chi is no longer a thing, so the fate of this piece of Northwestern sports history is currently unknown, at least by me.

The "Ryan" of Ryan Field (both #1 and #2) is Patrick G. Ryan.  Ryan is 89 years old and was the founder of the Aon Corporation, a big commercial insurance company best known locally for giving its name to one of Chicago's iconic skyscrapers that once belonged to Standard Oil.   Pretty much every project involving Northwestern sports in the last thirty years has had either Ryan's name on it or Ryan's influence on it--his name is also on the basketball arena, for example.  He's the man, and this is his baby.  

This new arena has a couple of notable qualities.  First, it is very small by college football stadium standards--35,000 seats, 12,000 less than Ryan Field #1.  It is by far the smallest stadium in the Big Ten. Realistically, Northwestern will never be able to fill a 90k+ monstrosity like they have at Ohio State or Michigan or Penn State.  They often had trouble filling the 47k at Ryan Field #1.  But 35,000 is really small for a college football stadium.  The pitch they have made is that the stadium is designed to place the fans as close as possible to the field and to maximize crowd noise, much like European soccer stadiums--you can see that in this video from inside the stadium.  They are also taking a page out of the NFL's playbook and putting in various luxury boxes and club areas to make up that lost seating revenue.  Ryan Field #2 is basically less like a college stadium and more like a miniature version of an NFL stadium.  

If this is done well, it might be very cool.  Here in Columbus, the MLS team the Columbus Crew built a new stadium that seats about 20k that is a really fun, really loud atmosphere.  And the videos make it seem like the crowd is really, really close to the action.  So it looks very cool.  But it also makes it seem like they are leaning into the idea of artificial scarcity.  I took a quick look at Seat Geek, and it looks like the cheapest seat for the Iowa game on November 7th is $189, whereas I could get a seat at OSU's stadium the next week to see NU for $83.  An NFL-style stadium brings with it NFL-style prices, and that is kind of a bummer.   

There is also the location to be considered.  New Ryan Field is built on top of old Ryan Field/Dyche Stadium, which means that it is in the Central Street location.  That location is a mile from the northern end of campus, and 1.8 miles from the dorm I lived my freshman year at the southern end of campus.  That's pretty far--I am not incredibly familiar with OSU's campus, but I could not find a dorm building that far from the stadium.  Not only is it far away, but it is surrounded by private residences and completely divorced from the campus and campus life.  

The location was brought into focus for me when I saw a game in 2024 at the temporary stadium that was set up while new Ryan Field was being built.  The temporary stadium was basically an extension of the fields that are used for the field hockey team, which sits directly on Lake Michigan in the heart of the north end of campus.  The thought I had, and I don't think I am the only one who had this thought, was "why are they not putting the stadium here?"  It was truly one of the unique and stunning locations to watch a college football game, and it seems like a tremendous waste to give that up in favor of a stadium in what is essentially the middle of a generic 'burb.  No matter how nice the inside of the stadium is.

But I think the real discussion point is around cost.  Ryan Field #2, clocking in at $850 million, is said to be the most expensive college football stadium in the country.  To be fair, very few schools build brand new stadiums, so there is not much competition for this title.  Be that as it may, $850 million is a lot of money.  So, so much money.  

You can approach the money issue from a purely internal to the athletic program perspective, and ask the question if that money would be or could be better spent on the NIL program.  $850 million, at a minimum, fund a top of the market football program for over ten years.  I understand that this stadium was in process before the current NIL era, but smart institutions pivot in the face of new realities.  Would it have made sense to take some of this $850 million dollars to make permanent expansions to the Lakeview facility and then pour the rest into the actual team on the field?  

But that conversation is ultimately in my view a distraction.  The real question I have is for Mr. Ryan himself.  I understand that Ryan is not footing the bill for the stadium itself, but he is surely putting some money into it, and has leveraged his obviously considerable influence, built up over a long and distinguished life, toward this project.  Is this really what you want to spend your time and money and influence on?  I say this as someone who loves college football and loves Northwestern specifically--I cannot imagine putting my efforts behind this.  There is so much that could be done with this money, even if all you want to focus on is Northwestern University itself.  You could make it easier for kids to go to the school with more scholarships and more financial aid.  

I've never met Mr. Ryan, so I cannot speak to his motivations.  But it is difficult not to see this as a profound act of hubris, a desire to be remembered via putting your name on things.  I don't think this is how you get remembered.  The true immortals are that way because of what they have done, the manner in which their lives have impacted others.  This can be done for good or for ill--the sad reality, as we are being reminded of lately, is that we will never be truly free of the archvillains of history like Hitler.  But the endurance of evil should not blind us to the possibility of good to last.  Think of the people in your life that were good to you, that built you up and made you who you are.  Even if they are no longer physically with us, they still live through you and the ways that their influence causes you to impact the world.  And this process is even more true for those who have had a world-wide impact.   

Putting your name on a bunch of things does not ultimately change this equation.  A person who has impacted the lives of others lives on whether or not their name can be found on any building or structure.  And a person who did not make such an impact will not be really remembered no matter how many times their names is plastered on things.  We walk by named things all the time without thinking about the person they are named after.  Ozymandias was not brought back to life when those travelers walked by his decaying statute in the Shelley poem.  And neither will Mr. Ryan, if he becomes forgotten.

I cannot get over the idea that naming buildings after yourself is kinda sad.  It seems to me an attempt trying to force something into existence that cannot be forced.  Whether we will be remembered is a referendum on our lives and how we lived them.  An obsession with slapping your name on things suggests that you don't believe that this referendum is going to turn out well for you.  And that's sad, especially coming from an 89 year old man.  I think there are better ways to spend your time and your money as a person who, even with modern medical technology, is coming into the twilight of life.  Even if we get a nice football stadium out of it.