40 Fun Facts About Western Illinois University

Western Illinois teams are the Leathernecks, a name officially borrowed from which military branch?

Marine Corps permission came in 1927 at the request of a coach who had served in World War I. No other non-military school officially takes its nickname from a service branch.

Which NFL team held its summer training camp at Western Illinois University from 1996 to 2004?

St. Louis Rams players spent nine summers on campus, among them the 1999 camp that came before their Super Bowl XXXIV victory. The team moved camp to its own facilities in 2005.

John Mahoney, who taught English at Western Illinois University, played the dad on which sitcom?

Frasier cast him as retired policeman Martin Crane from 1993 to 2004, long after he had earned his master's degree in English at Western Illinois.

Which Western Illinois graduate became a Republican strategist and married Democrat James Carville?

Mary Matalin was a deputy campaign manager for George H. W. Bush in 1992 while dating Carville, who was chief strategist for Bill Clinton's rival campaign.

Which Western Illinois safety won two Super Bowls with the Patriots before becoming an NBC analyst?

Rodney Harrison was the first NFL player with 30 sacks and 30 interceptions, and he picked off Donovan McNabb twice in Super Bowl XXXIX.

Western Illinois graduate Robert Nardelli ran which retail chain before he took charge of Chrysler?

Home Depot hired him in 2000 although he had no retail experience; the offer came about ten minutes after he lost the race to succeed Jack Welch at General Electric.

Colonel Rock, the live mascot at Western Illinois football games since 1958, is which breed of dog?

Bulldog Colonel Rock was bought by the student government in 1958 and paraded around the stadium on game days. A costumed two-legged version, Rocky, followed.

Which Freedom Rider and 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient studied at Western Illinois?

C. T. Vivian was sports editor of the student newspaper at Western Illinois before he became a close ally of Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement.

Which receiver who began college at Western Illinois chased down Leon Lett in a Super Bowl?

Don Beebe knocked the ball from Lett's hands just short of the goal line in Super Bowl XXVII, even though his Buffalo Bills were losing 52–17 to Dallas at the time.

Which colors did Western Illinois University adopt after a student praised prairie coneflowers?

Purple and gold won a schoolwide contest after first-year student Mary Jarvis suggested the pair. Her contest ribbons are attached to her framed 1906 diploma, kept in the university archives.

Western Illinois University's main campus is in which city, about 75 miles southwest of Peoria?

Macomb was chosen by the new school's trustees in August 1900, more than a year after the state created it, and classes began there in 1902 with 229 students.

Western Illinois graduate Michael Boatman played mayoral aide Carter Heywood on which sitcom?

Spin City arrived in 1996, eight years after he broke through as a mortician in the Vietnam drama China Beach. Western Illinois gave him its Alumni Achievement Award in 1997.

Lizzie Magie, born in Western Illinois University's city, invented the forerunner of which game?

Monopoly grew out of The Landlord's Game, which she designed to teach the economic ideas of Henry George. Her birthplace unveiled what it calls the world's largest version of the board downtown in 2024.

Western Illinois, a charter member of the Summit League, left it in 2023 to join which conference?

Ohio Valley Conference membership began on July 1, 2023. Western Illinois had been the last original member still in the Summit League, which was founded in 1982.

Western Illinois plays football on a field named for which coach, a World War I hero nicknamed Rock?

Ray Hanson fought at Belleau Wood and was decorated for heroism, then picked up the nickname Rock after studying coaching under Notre Dame's Knute Rockne.

Western Illinois safety Mike Wagner won four Super Bowls in six seasons with which NFL team?

Pittsburgh Steelers coaches made him a starter in the famed Steel Curtain unit, and he intercepted passes in both Super Bowl IX and Super Bowl X.

Western Illinois University opened a new riverfront campus in 2012 in which of the Quad Cities?

Moline had seen Western Illinois classes since 1912, when the school began offering extension courses in the area. The riverfront campus arrived exactly a century later.

Western Illinois' Rick and Paul Reuschel were the first brothers to combine on which pitching feat?

A shutout of the Dodgers on August 21, 1975 did it: Rick started for the Chicago Cubs and Paul pitched the final innings of a 7–0 win.

Which Western Illinois graduate became the first chief executive of Chicago Public Schools in 1995?

Paul Vallas went on to run school systems in Philadelphia and Louisiana, and he lost a runoff to Brandon Johnson in Chicago's 2023 mayoral election.

Western Illinois alumnus Red Miller took which team to Super Bowl XII in his first year as coach?

Denver Broncos success made him the AP's NFL Coach of the Year for 1977, though his Orange Crush unit could not stop Dallas in the title game.

Western Illinois graduate Mark Konkol shared which award in 2011 for reporting on Chicago violence?

Pulitzer Prize judges honored the Chicago Sun-Times team in the Local Reporting category. At Western Illinois he had been a reporter and news editor on the student newspaper.

Western Illinois graduate Vincent Stewart was the first Black director of which U.S. spy service?

Defense Intelligence Agency command came in 2015, 34 years after he earned a history degree at Western Illinois and was commissioned as a military officer.

Western Illinois graduate Caryl Stern led the American fundraising arm of which United Nations body?

UNICEF's American fund, which she ran as president and chief executive from 2007, is the oldest of the national committees that raise money for the children's charity.

Hall of Fame coach Darrell Mudra, at Western Illinois from 1969 to 1973, ran games from which spot?

The press box was his perch on game days at every school he coached, rather than the sideline where most head coaches stand. He entered the College Football Hall of Fame in 2000.

Which future Buffalo Bills coach led Western Illinois football to an unbeaten 9–0 season in 1959?

Lou Saban left the following year to become the first coach of the Boston Patriots, then won back-to-back AFL championships with Buffalo in 1964 and 1965.

Western Illinois lineman Khalen Saunders went viral before the 2019 NFL draft by doing which stunt?

A backflip by a lineman listed at 324 pounds was shared by ESPN's Adam Schefter, and the Kansas City Chiefs drafted him in the third round.

A Western Illinois defender drafted in 2007 became the first MLS player born in which country?

Japan-born Kosuke Kimura earned a soccer scholarship to Western Illinois after an intensive English course, and he helped the Colorado Rapids win the 2010 MLS Cup.

A Western Illinois statue honors track coach Lee Calhoun, twice the Olympic champion in which event?

110 m hurdles titles came in 1956 and 1960; he won the first with a lunge at the line, a move he had learned from the very teammate he beat.

Western Illinois' Gene Lamont was American League Manager of the Year in 1993 with which team?

Chicago White Sox players won 94 games and their first division title in a decade under him, an odd triumph for a man who had been a Cubs fan all his life.

Which standard about a Southern state is a crowd-pleaser for the Western Illinois marching band?

Georgia on My Mind is known on campus nearly as well as the official fight song, We Are Marching On, and the alma mater, Western Loyalty.

Western Illinois' Quad Cities riverfront hall stands on the old tech center of which tractor maker?

John Deere once ran its technical center on the site. Riverfront Hall opened there in 2012 for the university's business, technology and engineering programs.

Western Illinois' Frank Winters snapped to Brett Favre for eight straight seasons with which team?

Green Bay Packers center Winters, nicknamed Old Bag of Donuts, started every season from 1993 to 2000 and won Super Bowl XXXI with the team.

Western Illinois' Joe Dykstra set a Division I basketball record by making 64 in a row of what?

Free throws were a team specialty in 1981–82: Dykstra's streak ended at 64 that January, and Western Illinois led all of Division I in accuracy from the line.

Western Illinois University's city and county are both named for commanders in which conflict?

War of 1812 victories at Plattsburgh and on Lake Champlain made heroes of a general and a commodore, and the county lay in a tract Congress set aside for that war's veterans.

Which hall, Western Illinois University's only building until 1914, is a listed historic place?

Sherman Hall was known simply as the Main Building until the 1950s, when it was renamed for the Illinois House speaker who had helped bring the school to town.

Which fraternal order's local lodge donated the land on which Western Illinois University was built?

Freemasons of Illinois Lodge No. 17 gave the site. Proof of how hard they had lobbied for their town turned up a century later, when the first building's cornerstone was opened.

Until Western Illinois unified its team names in 2009, women's teams competed under which nickname?

Westerwinds gave way to Leathernecks for every team in the fall of 2009. Three more women's sports, beach volleyball, bowling and STUNT, were announced in 2023.

Gyo Obata, architect of the main Western Illinois library, also designed which Smithsonian landmark?

The Air and Space Museum in Washington is among his best-known buildings. His six-level Malpass Library at Western Illinois was completed in November 1975.

Which Mississippi River city was a rival beaten for the site of Western Illinois University?

Quincy, Aledo, Monmouth, La Harpe and Rushville were all candidates for the new western normal school before its trustees settled on a site in August 1900.

Camilo Osías, a 1908 Western Illinois graduate, later led the senate of which country?

Philippines Senate president twice in the early 1950s, he had gone on from Illinois to Columbia University's Teachers College, where he graduated in 1910.