Sports
Former Wildcats women’s basketball player Clarissa Flores ’01 opened Level Sporting Club, a sports bar dedicated to women’s sports, in Chicago’s Wrigleyville neighborhood.
Every spring, nine Northwestern alums gather to talk baseball and reminisce on the good old days with the Vulture League, a fantasy baseball league they started at Northwestern in 1986. Carl Brownell ’86 shares the group’s origins and how they’ve stuck it out for 40 years and counting.
This fall, the Northwestern Alumni Association will present its highest honor, the Alumni Medal, to three graduates whose achievements and service exemplify leadership and excellence.
A student at Northwestern in the early 1920s, Sybil Bauer set 23 world records in women’s backstroke and was the first woman to break a men’s world record in swimming. One of the greatest athletes of her time, Bauer’s career was cut short when she died of cancer at age 23.
Members of the Class of 2026 reflect on the clubs they joined, the communities they found and more.
While producing a client event the Kentucky Derby Museum in 2019, Nancy Hays ’84 MS discovered a dimly lit gallery that highlighted the history of Black jockeys. She spent the next seven years uncovering the history of Isaac Burns Murphy, one of the most decorated athletes of the 19th century.
On Sept. 28, 2025, Taeyoung Lee ’26 finished his sixth international Ironman triathlon, becoming the youngest person to complete an Ironman on six continents.
Barry Slotnick ’93, ’00 MBA knew about the fitness benefits of slide boards — smooth, low-friction devices designed to facilitate low-impact lateral movement exercises and mimic speed skating technique. Looking for an indoor activity to maintain his lower body strength in the winter, Slotnick built a slide board in his off-campus apartment in the fall of his senior year — and UltraSlide was born.
If Glenn DeWeirdt ’84 DDS is not in his dental office, he’s probably on a racetrack. From April through October, DeWeirdt moonlights as a high-performance vehicle driving instructor, an avocation that involves “hours of boredom tempered by moments of sheer terror.”
Former Northwestern Wildcat Ike Kepford and his fellow Jolly Rogers in Fighter Squadron 17 helped foil what could have been a devastating Japanese anti-carrier attack in the early days of the Pacific War. For most of 1944, Kepford was the Navy’s leading ace with a total of 16 aerial victories, and for his service, he was awarded two Navy Crosses, a Silver Star and a Distinguished Flying Cross.
