In October 1968, the Viking football team fielded by North Park College (Chicago, IL) highlighted its season with a Homecoming pasting of the North Central College Cardinals (Naperville, IL) by a final score of 104-32!! The Vikings finished the season with a winning record of 6-3, and three players from the team got selected during the NFL draft. Since this apex, the Viking football team has a history of futility by, for example, 1) failing to finish above .500 in every year since 1968, 2) enduring an 89 game consecutive conference losing streak at the beginning of this century, and 3) completing an 8-28 record during my four years as a co-ed. During my senior year, a friend wrote sports column for the student newspaper. Rob chronicled the football futility with headlines that read, “Vikings Edge Closer to a Winless Season” and “0-9 Sorry Virginia, There Is No Santa Claus.” Rob recently told me that football players approached him to cease his negative-yet accurate-reporting.
And how has the North Central football team recently performed? First, excluding the 2025 game in which the Cardinals beat North Park 75-0 (!), the Cardinals had beaten North Park 27 consecutive times by an average score of 45-10, including, in 2009, pillaging the Vikings, 83-7. (These results come from North Central as most of North Park’s futility does not appear within its athletics home page.) Second, North Central won national championships in 2019, 2022, and 2024. Third, North Central has been ranked #1 this year since the preseason poll got released. How has the North Park football team performed in the 21st century? First, North Park finished this season with a record of 3-7, extending its consecutive seasons without finishing above .500. Second, during this season of ongoing humiliation, the Vikings lost games with lopsided scores to North Central, 49-21 to WashU, and 52-6 to Wheaton College. Third, North Park accumulated a total of 739 rushing yards this season with two games in negative territory (-34 and -3)…for a season average of 2.5 yards per attempt…with only eight touchdowns.
Speaking of futility, I knew that Prairie View A+M, an HBCU school with membership in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, fielded a bad football program. According to Wikipedia, the Panthers finished above .500 only twice between 1968-89, which I did not know. I do recall their losing streak of 80 games. However, during said streak Prairie View did not grant athletic scholarships in football whereas other conference members did so. I asked Perplexity.AI questions concerning football futility such as the most losing seasons in college football since 1968. AI fed me only Division I programs – Vanderbilt at 43 and Kentucky with 35. I refined my search to Division III only, which is North Park football’s “competitive” level. Perplexity fed me that Earlham College had 53 consecutive losses (2013-18), which broke Macalester College’s record of 50 (1974-80). Prompted by Perplexity’s suggestions, e.g., programs with losing seasons since 1968, AI listed, “based on online statistical databases,” Kenyon, Sewanee, Anderson, and Grove City in addition to Earlham and Macalester. “Earlham College is widely recognized as leading all Division III programs for losing seasons in the modern era, with documented losing streaks.” Thus, I deduced that AI did not recognize North Park’s football futility of 56 seasons because the postsecondary institution has scrubbed statistics.
I seriously doubt North Park will rise above a .500 record in this decade. “Book it, Danno.” The template has been set for decades. That is, since my arrival on campus and ongoing, seasonal observations, North Park has been plagued by coaching turnover, and the football roster has always consisted of a disproportionate number of freshmen and sophomores. Physically, these student athletes are simply not prepared to compete against more mature players. I surmise that footballers leave North Park or stop playing football due in part to experiencing weekly poundings. I tracked North Park’s 2021 freshmen football class, and less than 25% graduated in four years. Overall, this year’s roster had 18 seniors and 113 players overall.
North Park University (a name switch did not equate to gridiron improvement) has been a member of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) since I arrived on this planet six decades ago. The current CCIW has 10 schools that play football; WashU is a football-only associate conference member. Thus, in order to have a 10-game season (maximum permitted per NCAA), a CCIW school competes against every member and slates only one nonconference opponent. WashU has been released of its membership and will be replaced by Concordia University (WI) in fall 2027.
I’ve heard North Park, a tuition-driven school, needs football because the 100+ players pay tuition, room and board. I counter that argument by pointing at North Park’s robust, fall 2025 enrollment of 2,631 students. This number is more than twice as many when I attended my alma mater. If North Park eliminated football, think of the savings. Football costs a lot of money with salaries and presumably benefits for 12 coaches (https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/football/coaches/2025), significant amount of equipment and recruiting expenditures for 100+ players, travel and per diem, referees and game day expenses, and other miscellaneous expenses. The cost savings could be redirected to strengthen existing athletic teams, enhance academics, or hit the balance sheet as money not spent.
The CCIW at https://cciw.org/ does not post its administrative bylaws to the public. In this connection, I have been told the bylaws require member institutions to field various teams, including football. If violating bylaws, a member could possibly be expelled from the conference. .I’ve seen this requirement in gender equity in athletics cases during my professional career that included basketball, softball, volleyball, baseball, et. al.. ‘Twas told by athletic directors at postsecondary institutions the primary reason for the requirement: scheduling practicality. But, why football at the CCIW? Why limit the competitive season to only one nonconference game? Wouldn’t North Central benefit from scheduling a challenge during the nonconference season? Shit, North Central beat its lone nonconference opponent, 45-14, and then outscored its nine conference opponents 497 (55ppg) to 52 (5.7), including four shutouts! (I wonder when North Park last shut out an opponent.) Why must North Central or Wheaton or any other member have to annually play against doormat North Park?
Mandating a football team seems ludicrous in today’s CCIW context. That is, prior to WashU becoming a member, the CCIW had nine institutions with football (two nonconference games each year), and, more importantly, between 1992-2016, the CCIW had eight schools. That meant more nonconference games were played every fall on a CCIW gridiron for decades! “Scheduling” does not remotely rise to the level of a legitimate justification, given not only the historical perspective, but also the plethora of Division III football opponents within comparable mileage parameters such as Decatur to Kenosha or Bloomington to Rock Island.
In my opinion, North Park should eliminate football, effective immediately! I also believe this act of mercy should not be considered worthy of any sanction.
