Stewart Mandel's timing was impeccable. Northwestern was wandering in college football's wasteland when he stepped on campus in 1995. The team entered its first game against No. 9 Notre Dame as a 28-point underdog. Three hours later, the Wildcats had stunned the Fighting Irish, 17-15. By season's end, Northwestern was headed to Pasadena to play in the Rose Bowl, a dramatic turnaround for a program that had a string of losing seasons dating to 1972.
"The thrill of that '95 Rose Bowl season energized the entire campus, and I quickly became aware of how the national media covered that story," he said. "I knew right then that I wanted to be one of those people, covering those type of stories."
Mandel joined SI.com in 1999 and has been covering college football since. He is the guest on our podcast, which you can listen to by clicking here or on the audio link below. Runtime is 14:46.
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The hardest part for Mandel is getting the Big Ten DNA off his face while he's "reporting" on the better conferences. The guy is a hack along with all the other Medill suck asses.
Posted by: T-Bone | September 16, 2010 at 11:27 PM