The Wisconsin Badgers football team is the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s college football program. The Badgers compete at the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, and is a member of the Big 10 Conference. Their home games are played at the Camp Randall Stadium. They have a win-loss-tie record of 575-451-53 and a winning percentage of 53%. The name of the team is a reference to Wisconsin state’s early history. Sometime in the early 19thcentury prospectors came to Wisconsin to look for minerals, particularly lead. During winter, the miners had to seek shelter inside tunnels that were burrowed in the hillsides, and thus lived like badgers. Their territory came to be known as the “Badger State.” Currently, as of 2008, the Badgers head coach is Breat Bielema, their offensive coordinator is Paul Chryst, and their defensive coordinator is Dave Doeren.
Member of the Big 10
The Big 10 is one of the major conferences in college football and is the oldest Division I college athletic conference in the country. It has a total of eleven members including the Badgers with teams that are primarily located in the Midwestern part of the U.S. It includes Pennsylvania in the East and stretches from Iowa and Minnesota in the west. Nine of the eleven conference schools in the Big 10 are considered to be Public Ivy Leagues, including the University of Wisconsin. It enjoys the prestige of both athletic and academic excellence. The conference competes in the NCAA Division I. The Big 10 member teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly Division I-A—the highest level of the NCAA competition. The member schools also are members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, an educational consortium. Despite the name Big 10, there are 11 members, with the Penn State joining in 1990. The Big 10 center is located in La Porte County, Indiana.
Badgers Various Incarnations
Throughout the years, various forms of badgers have represented the team as the school mascot. The current mascot is named Bucky, wearing the team’s colors of cardinal and white in a letter sweater. This mascot was first drawn by artist Art Evans in 1940. The badger mascot went by many names such as Buddy, Benny, Bobby, Bernie, and Bouncey. It was Art Lentz, then publicity director for the athletics department who brought the mascot to life. The badger mascot of yesteryears was known to be rowdy and out-of-control—since it was a real live badger! The badger was known to run amok and frighten fans and players alike. It was decided for everyone’s safety that the badger was better off in the Madison Zoo and did not belong in the school or in football games. The badger was then replaced by a tamer but still no-badger, small raccoon aptly named Regdab (which was badger spelled backwards) passed off as a badger in a raccoon coat. In 1949, Connie Conrad, an art student in the university, made a badger head molded from papier-mâché. Cheerleader and gymnast, Bill Sagal, wore the outfit during a homecoming game. A contest was held to name the mascot and the winning name was “Bucky,” which pushed the football team to “buck right through that line.”
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