Northwestern football rolled out their new marketing campaign for the upcoming season and this time they got it almost perfect. The new slogan #HOMEGROWN is just right and perfectly suitable for Northwestern football, men’s basketball and the athletic programs in general.
It refers to Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald (Orland Park, Carl Sandburg high school), hoops coach Chris Collins (Northbrook, Glenbrook North high school) and Athletic Director Dr. Jim Phillips (northwest side/Portage Park neighborhood, University of Illinois) all having Chicagoland roots.
The rollout is perfect…almost. All that needs to be done is a phasing out of the old slogan “Chicago’s B1G Ten Team.”
That catch-phrase has more than run its course. It’s been scrutinized plenty and mocked more than enough since it came along once this decade began. There is no need to poke any more fun at it, or eviscerate the alternative facts logic that it implies. That’s been done enough already. Just phase it out this upcoming season and go all in with “homegrown,”
It’s basically the Northwestern football version of that scene in “The Social Network” when Sean Parker (portrayed by Justin Timberlake) tells Mark Zuckerberg (portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg) “just ‘Facebook’, drop the ‘the’ in it.” Branding of often parsimonious, or Bauhausian “less is more.”
#Homegrown works, Chicago’s team doesn’t because this city doesn’t have “a team” or “one team.” It’s a hodge-podge, a salad bowl, citing a RedEye op-ed from December 2015:
It’s unlikely any one team will ever unite the Second City. Unless a sea change occurs, it’s always going to be a fragmented but passionate and extremely engaged college football landscape.
A 2014 New York Times study claimed that Chicago “may have the most intricate set of loyalties of any city in the country. Those loyalties are split among Notre Dame, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State and Northwestern.”
The new Northwestern football mantra is simply much more fitting in every way. The best player on this Northwestern football team, running back and Glenbard North grad Justin Jackson (who is rewriting the Wildcats rushing record book), and the starting quarterback/Wheaton North grad Clayton Thorson (who’s broken some NU passing records himself) also hail from the area.
Take a look at the new marketing campaign video with Pat Fitzgerald below:
A native of Palos Heights (a town bordering Orland Park) loves the fact that this ad opens with a shot of the “Orland Park: World’s Golf Center” water tower, which is painted to resemble a golf ball on a tee. This references the very high concentration of country clubs in the Palos-Orland region, which is essentially the southernmost point of Chicagoland.
Anything south of 159th street (Tinley Park and such) and you’re in the DMZ between Central/Southern Illinois/Downstate and Chicagoland. The “official” border between the two is areas is probably Interstate-80. Although this is highly debatable, so have at it in the comments section.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/879434916517347328
Also, if you’re a NU grad with a “homegrown” story to tell, reach out to Northwestern Athletics on social media with the hash tag #HOMEGROWN
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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