Northern Illinois is putting Joe Novak on its helmets this fall, and the tribute is landing exactly the way you'd hope for a guy who built the program from nothing. Novak died in late July at 81, and the Huskies are making sure he's on the field with them every Saturday this season.
Northern Illinois will wear helmet decals this season honoring late NIU Hall of Fame coach Joe Novak
Novak isn't just a name on a plaque in DeKalb. He took over NIU in 1996 inheriting a program that hadn't had a winning season in 5 years, and by the time he walked away in 2007 he'd won 63 games — the 3rd-most in school history. That run included 4 MAC West titles, a 2002 MAC Coach of the Year award, and a 2003 team that climbed as high as No. 10 in the BCS rankings. Seven straight winning seasons from 2000-2006, a 32-8 mark at home over that stretch, bowl trips including a Silicon Valley Bowl win — Novak turned NIU into a program that mattered nationally, not just in the MAC.
That's the resume behind why this decal is landing the way it is with people outside DeKalb, too. National college football reporters aren't exactly in the business of gushing over a mid-major helmet decal, but this one's getting the reaction you'd expect for a coach who left fingerprints all over the sport.
Love this. Joe left an incredible legacy at NIU and around college football.
Novak was inducted into the NIU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013 and the MAC Hall of Fame in 2014, and he mentored 10 All-Americans along the way. But the stuff people keep coming back to isn't the win total — it's the character piece. NIU athletic director Sean Frazier said as much when Novak passed, calling him a man who positively affected the lives of countless young men who came through the program.
A decal is a small thing on a helmet, but for a guy who spent 12 years rebuilding a program that had nowhere to go but up, it's the right kind of small. NIU opens the season with Novak's name riding along on every snap — and given how the football world reacted to the news, it's clear DeKalb wasn't the only place that felt his loss.