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."
