Keynote Speaker
Barry Alvarez

In the decade of the 1990s, the Wisconsin football program has been elevated from laughing stock to a perennial bowl participant. Energetic ninth-year head coach Barry Alvarez is the person credited with overseeing that resurrection. Alvarez, who turned 52 two days prior to the Badgers' Rose Bowl game last January (a 38-31 victory over UCLA), has raised spirits and expectations for a once-moribund gridiron program. Alvarez, who enjoyed immense success as a player at Nebraska and as an assistant coach at Iowa and Notre Dame prior to his appointment in Madison, has turned the football fortunes around at a school that won just nine times in the four years before his arrival. He was named head football coach on Jan. 2, 1990, just after Notre Dame (where Alvarez was assistant head coach) defeated Colorado in the Orange Bowl to win the national championship. Alvarez' record at Wisconsin entering the 1999-00 season was 60-42-4 (.585). During his tenure, Alvarez reversed the fortunes of a program that had hit rock bottom. After a 1-10 rookie season, Alvarez guided the UW to a Big Ten co-championship and Rose Bowl triumph in his fourth year. Only two coaches in Big Ten history, Alvarez and Ohio State's Wes Fesler (1947-49), took last-place programs their first year and turned them into eventual league champs. Besides the obvious on-field improvement, home crowds have increased by more than 36,000 per game since his arrival. The Badgers have ranked in the top 10 nationally for attendance the last five seasons and have played in front of 25 more-than-capacity crowds in the last 28 games at Camp Randall Stadium.

Coach Alvarez' Awards:

Barry Alvarez' Coaching Awards - American Football Coaches Association National Coach of the Year, 1993 - Bobby Dodd Foundation National Coach of the Year, 1993 - College and Pro Football Newsweekly National Coach of the Year, 1993 - College Sports Magazine National Coach of the Year, 1993 - Big Ten Conference Coach of the Year, 1993 Alvarez earned his B.S. degree in '69 and an M.A. degree from Nebraska in '71.