More than a year and a half ago, UW-Madison Sports Information Director Steve Malchow began assembling an exhibit of more than 100 years of Badger sports memorabilia. Today, the display makes its formal debut in the Kohl Center.
\It's probably something that was long overdue here,"" Malchow said.
Malchow, along with UW-Madison Equipment Manager Terry Schlatter and Terry Murawski, executive director of The National W Club, located and catalogued artifacts for the exhibit ranging from a photograph of the 1897 UW-Madison women's basketball team to former Badger basketball player Kirk Penney's jersey from the 2000 Olympic Games. Many items on display have been donated by famous alumni, including Penney, Ron Dayne and Elroy Hirsch.
Hirsch, inducted into the National Football Hall of Fame in 1968, played for the Badgers in the '40s. Only the second Badger ever to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Hirsch donated a bust of his head, which was cast for the induction.
Latter-day football hero Aaron Gibson donated one of his old football helmets to the display. Gibson, who weighed about 390 pounds when he played for the Badgers, is famous for using the largest helmets ever made by helmet manufacturer Riddell. Despite his massive size, Gibson can also do the splits, toes up.
However, in the early 20th century, football was not the most popular sport on campus-boxing was. In 1934, the same year he enrolled in law school at UW-Madison, former UW boxing coach John Walsh built the wildly successful boxing program from scratch. Walsh coached 29 boxers to 35 National Collegiate Athletic Association victories.
One such boxer was former Badger Dick Murphy. Murphy's mother prohibited him from boxing, so until she gave him her permission he was forced to box under the pseudonym Dick O'Reilly. The exhibit displays a pair of Murphy's old boxing shoes emblazoned with four-leaf clovers for good luck.
In 1983, during the prestigious Tbilisi wrestling tournament held in Russia, former Badger wrestler and head wrestling coach Andy Rein defeated the defending Olympic Champion from the Soviet Union, winning the gold medal and a yak fur cape. Rein donated the cape and medal to the display.
""I'm still in disbelief,"" Malchow said. ""[The cape] is the coolest thing in the whole display. ... It is the most unglamorous piece of cloth I've ever seen. It looks like a black rug.""
Badger athletes are not the only ones celebrated in the display. A photograph on display from 1940 shows 16,500 Badger fans packing the Field House, setting a record for largest collegiate boxing attendance.
""Beyond the artifacts, the stories are neat,"" Malchow said. ""I hope [Kohl Center game attendees] take time to read the captions.\
