Participants celebrate at the after-party for the 2024 Crazylegs Classic. Runner’s World magazine listed the perennial favorite in its Top 100 events. Bryce Richter

The Crazylegs Classic race is the brainchild of three running buddies who wanted to raise money for UW athletics and boost attendance at the spring football game. Tom Grantham ’61, Ken Sparks ’72, ’74, and Rich Backus, who were fans of then–Athletic Director Elroy Hirsch x’45, asked his permission to christen the race Crazylegs after the nickname Hirsch earned for his unique running style as a UW football player.

The first runners kicked up their heels in 1982, when the event drew 1,525 participants and raised $9,500. The 8K run, held on the last Saturday of April, starts on Library Mall and winds through campus. Organizers added a two-mile walk in 1987 and an 8K wheelchair race in 2005. Five years later, Crazylegs set a record with 20,415 competitors, but participants are now capped at 10,000, with athletes hailing from all over Wisconsin and, typically, about a dozen other states.

According to Shane Burgess, an assistant athletic director for event operations, each year some 30 to 40 teams made up of colleagues from various companies, organizations, and families compete, adding to the community spirit.

And that spirit prevails despite Wisconsin’s unpredictable weather, which saw runners facing high winds and sleet in 1988 and some seven inches of snow in 1994 and 2019. Not even the COVID-19 pandemic could stop the race, as close to 2,000 fans participated virtually in 2021. The event has drawn more than 354,000 contestants since its inception.

The 43rd Crazylegs this past spring marked a return to the football field at Camp Randall for the popular after-party, which had moved to the Kohl Center due to stadium construction.

Nick Pasquarello ’94, MS’18, director of the National W Club for athletics alumni, says that the race is one of campus’s most iconic events. “It’s a rallying point and a great opportunity to bring people back to Madison and back to campus to share Badger camaraderie.”

Burgess adds that the family-friendly event has become more than just an athletics fundraiser. It also has a big impact on the Madison economy, generating a significant chunk of the $462 million brought in annually by athletics department events.

University Square as it looked in the 1980s, when its lineup included a B. Dalton bookstore and a copy shop. University Archives

In May 1975, the UW community became the center of Madison’s cinematic universe with the opening of the University Square Four: “Madison’s 1st Four-Theatre Entertainment Center,” according to ads. Patrons could go to just one address — the corner of University Avenue and Park Street — and have their choice of four different films.

A newspaper ad for the theater’s opening. University Archives

Or rather three films, on the day the theater opened. Screens one and two both showed Gone in 60 Seconds, while three had Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and four had Chinatown. Not everyone was upbeat about the opening. Projectionists Local 251 picketed in front of the doors, asking for higher pay from U Square Four’s owner, American Multi-Cinema (AMC). AMC responded that U Square was fully automated and so didn’t need full-time projectionists. But in spite of the unpromising start, U Square Four lasted 30 years.

The University Square shopping center contained more than a movie theater, of course. Its single story covered 60,000 square feet, taking up much of the south side of the 700 block of University Avenue. It hosted the Discount Den (later just the Den); it was the original home for Madhatter bar; and it was the longest-lived of the many locations for Paisan’s Italian restaurant.

In 2001, U Square’s ownership announced a plan to redevelop the old shopping center, replacing it with a multistory structure that includes an apartment building (The Lucky) and UW offices. It took a few years for that plan to become a reality, but in 2006, U Square closed. The Den shut down in 2005. Madhatter moved to West Gorham, where it lasted another decade. Paisan’s moved to West Wilson, where it kept going until 2022.

But the theater had nowhere to go. Perhaps it was the revenge of Projectionists Local 251.

Washburn Observatory and environs achieved pop-culture immortality with the release of 1934’s “It’s Dark on Observatory Hill.” UW Archives

In the early 20th century, Observatory Hill was renowned in scientific circles as the site of UW–Madison’s Washburn Observatory. But in popular lore, it was known less for science than for seduction.

In the 1920s, an uptick in car ownership transformed once-quiet Observatory Drive into a lovers’ lane. Couples flocked to the romantic overlook on Lake Mendota, chugging up the hill in their Model Ts. Everybody had a good time — everybody but the UW astronomers, that is. The cars’ lights interfered with their celestial observations, and the noise (not to mention the necking) distracted from scientific research.

By the early 1930s, Observatory Hill had become nationally notorious, according to Chasing the Stars, a history of UW astronomy by James Lattis MA’87, PhD’89 and Kelly Tyrrell MS’11. Even conservative Time magazine referred to it with a wink and a nudge: “University of Wisconsin jacks and jills like to go up Madison’s Observatory Hill at night.”

Today, the song’s cloying lyrics are more likely to elicit a snort than a sigh.

In 1934, the site achieved pop-culture immortality with the release of “It’s Dark on Observatory Hill.” Describing “a stroll to the hilltop where college sweethearts go,” the song was written by Johnny Burke 1927 and Harold Spina and popularized by Bob Crosby and the Dorsey Brothers, among others. To the astronomers’ dismay, hordes of couples suddenly wanted to “look at the lights on the campus down below” while contemplating “what the stars do have in store.”

Faculty members complained, and by 1937 Observatory Drive had been rerouted away from Washburn Observatory. Finally, the astronomy department could chart the galaxies in peace.

Today, Observatory Hill is nothing if not respectable, but the once-racy song survives in multiple versions on YouTube. To modern ears, the melody is so stiffly metronomic that it’s hard to believe “It’s Dark on Observatory Hill” once titillated young lovers. And the cloying lyrics are now more likely to elicit a snort than a sigh: “They don’t have to know arithmetic / To figure why you and I would click.”

The Lettermen, Ray Conniff, and others continued recording the song into the 1960s, but only one interpretation hints at its potential. In 1953, Martha Tilton drew on her experience in Benny Goodman’s orchestra to loosen up the ticktock rhythms with languorous jazz phrasing (see below). Tilton also provided an essential ingredient lacking in the other versions: sultriness. “The moon may mean romance,” Tilton sings — and for once, you believe it.

Despite major changes to Madison’s transportation system, the good old 80 bus continues its traditional route through campus. Bryce Richter

Whether it’s to avoid walking up Bascom Hill, to evade the worst of Wisconsin weather, or to get home safely at night, one thing is certain: Badgers love to take the bus.

Nearly 30 percent of UW–Madison students report riding the bus to campus on nice days, and that percentage doubles during bad weather, according to a 2023 survey by Transportation Services. It’s hard to beat the convenience and cost: the four campus routes serviced by Madison’s Metro Transit — 80, 81, 82, and 84 — are free to use for all riders. Students can also acquire special bus passes, funded by segregated fees and other sources, that allow them to hop on other city routes at no additional cost.

On a university sandwiched between lakes, access to public transportation is all-important. There are only 13,000 campus parking spaces for some 80,000 students and employees (and even more visitors), which means that most students can’t keep cars.

The UW has been encouraging students to use other modes of transportation — including their legs — since at least 1924, when massive traffic jams behind Bascom Hall resulted in the university’s first parking restrictions. The rules forbade students from parking on campus east of the Stock Pavilion, freeing up space for faculty and visitors.

By 1963, campus bus lines were carrying more than 1.5 million passengers during the academic year. But UW students briefly revolted against their favorite motor vehicle. In fall 1966, the City of Madison converted University Avenue into a one-way street pointing west while allowing buses to use a “wrong way” lane heading east. A female student was soon struck by on oncoming bus. That spring, hundreds of UW students — already mobilized by the Vietnam War — protested the wayward lane by blocking an approaching bus with their bodies. The event led to a brief suspension of citywide bus service.

In the late ’60s, some feared that the city would lose its bus service altogether, with ridership rates dropping and the private Madison Bus Company nearing insolvency. The City of Madison purchased the business and formally took over the operation of the bus system in 1970.

Metro Transit has been a steady caretaker of the campus lines ever since. The unlimited-ride student bus passes arrived in the 1990s, and the campus bus routes became fare-free in the early 2000s.

Preparing for its Bus Rapid Transit program, the city launched a massive network redesign in 2023. Most of its routes were reconfigured and renamed with letters instead of numbers, but not the campus lines. So the 80 bus — reliably running every five minutes at peak times — lives on.

Paul’s was less a retail establishment than a state of mind. Musty literary classics and dusty bestsellers leaned every which way on the battered wooden shelves. Baskets on the floor might contain film stills, long-forgotten journals, or yellowed sheet music — you really had to get down on the linoleum and paw through them. Hand-lettered cards demarcated sections for “Fiction,” “Nautical Seafaring,” and, yes, “Books about Books.” Vintage records spun on a turntable behind the cluttered counter. Taped on the ends of the shelving units were archaeological layers of detritus: ancient postcards, magazine covers, business cards, obituaries, foreign currency, and pictures of both literary celebrities and unidentified people. Barnes and Noble this was not.

But who wanted it to be? Unlike the Starbucks across the street, Paul’s Book Store was not a corporate entity. It was a family-run operation with a human touch, founded by book lover Paul Askins and faithfully sustained by his wife, Caryl Askins ’51, after Paul died in 1975. The two met while working at an early incarnation of University Book Store and operated the shop in two other locations before settling into the long, narrow space near Library Mall, with its decorative tin ceiling. The homey display window beckoned pedestrians with plants, statuettes, and an always-intriguing selection of used books.

Paul and Caryl created an environment set apart from the required reading in UW classrooms: a place to get lost in the stacks, commune with obscure authors, and drink in arcane knowledge. A place where time stopped.

Reportedly, the store still did good business. I often had to flatten myself against the shelves to let other browsers pass in the cramped aisles. But 94-year-old Caryl felt ready to retire, and without an Askins, you really couldn’t imagine Paul’s.

It’s true that former customers can probably search online to find, say, the multivolume Smithsonian Institution Annual Report from 1880 to 1955. But anyone connected to UW–Madison knows that the experience of lazing away an afternoon in Paul’s Book Store can never be recaptured.

Doug Moe, left, chats with Leckrone about their new book on the 50-year evolution of UW bands. Andy Manis

The Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) hosted a special Wisconsin Idea Spotlight event in December featuring former UW–Madison director of bands Mike Leckrone and Madison author Doug Moe ’79, celebrating their new book, Moments of Happiness: A Wisconsin Band Story.

The event gave attendees an intimate look into Leckrone’s 50-year career and the evolution of the university’s bands, which the legendary director transformed into the celebrated institutions we know today.

The book’s title stems from Leckrone’s speech to band members before his first Rose Bowl (1994), encouraging them to cherish positive moments to help them through challenging times. “ ‘There are going to be some bad times, but think about the moments of happiness.’ And it’s just kind of stuck with me ever since,” he reflected. This philosophy, along with lessons learned from his father about pushing beyond perceived limitations, shaped Leckrone’s transformative leadership of the program.

That first Rose Bowl is among Leckrone’s most cherished memories. “It wasn’t just a moment. It was everything that was going on at that time. The whole state came together,” he remembered.

Leckrone explained that he credits his grandfather for part of his philosophy of life. “My grandfather used to say, ‘If you think you can’t, you can’t.’ And I firmly believe that, so I used that philosophy to push the kids.”

Throughout his tenure, Leckrone developed lasting traditions, including the band’s motto, “Eat a rock,” which emerged from an impromptu pep talk about toughness. Even during the football program’s challenging years, the band maintained its reputation for excellence and became a main attraction at games.

Now retired, Leckrone told the audience that what he misses most is daily interactions with band members, whom he still views as “kids” even decades after their graduation. “I still can see that kid in them, even if they come back and they’ve been out of the band for maybe 20 years,” he said.

Ted Odell stirs up a 250-pound batch of his cookie batter in this 1973 photo from the Daily Cardinal. UW Archives (James Korger)

UW–Madison graduates from the 1960s to the early 1990s might remember a hefty, healthy snack available in local food co-ops called the Guerrilla Cookie. When its eccentric baker, Ted Odell ’64, stopped making the treats around 1990 or 1991, zealous fans tried to re-create the recipe, which Odell kept a closely guarded secret. Most assumed he had taken it to his grave when he passed away in 2021.

Perhaps the most impassioned baker, Karen McKim ’75, MA’77, dedicated a blog to the topic and tried more than 75 recipes. Dave Denison ’82, a former employee of Odell’s (and, full disclosure, this writer’s brother), wrote a lengthy piece in the September 2023 Baffler magazine about the cookie, its creator, and a futile quest to find the recipe. Denison was surprised this past April to hear from someone who actually had the original recipe.

That someone was Steve Apfelbaum, president of the board of the Southern Wisconsin Land Conservancy. SWLC manages the nonprofit Three Waters Reserve, a natural area and event center in Brodhead, Wisconsin, which hosts events such as corporate retreats, parties, and wedding receptions to support conservation efforts.

When Odell passed away, he bequeathed his land to the reserve, which had once been his family’s farm before it was sold in 1925 and converted into a golf course. Odell’s lifelong dream was to see the land returned to a more natural state. He helped SWLC buy the property and quietly gave the reserve his coveted recipe about a year before he died. “He wanted the cookies to go to a good cause,” says Apfelbaum. “He was very mission-oriented, and he wanted them to go to a conservation/education mission.”

The reserve’s chef, John Marks, and his staff re-created the cookie, painstakingly determining the original brands of ingredients that Odell used. Three Waters began selling the original-recipe cookies, as well as some modernized variations, this past spring.

A hefty, healthy snack. Andy Manis for Wisconsin State Journal

“We’d love to sell a lot of cookies, because it will finance a lot of happy birds and happy plants and happy butterflies,” says Apfelbaum.

Inspired by the Guerrilla Cookie, Three Waters is also developing what it calls the Climate Cookie, which will use flour made from native grass seeds such as Virginia wild rye. The native perennial will not require tilling the soil, fertilizer, or pesticides, taking Odell’s environmental ethos to the next level. A national chain will stock it, and a portion of sales will generate royalties for conservation. “Ted was so excited when he realized that the Climate Cookie could start a whole new line of foods derived from native ecosystems,” Apfelbaum says.

In the Baffler article, Denison revealed that Odell’s original intentions for his bakery involved a center that would provide nutritional education to children and donate its profits to worthy causes. Sadly, many of Odell’s later years were spent in frustration because he couldn’t find anyone who shared his dream.

No doubt he is resting peacefully now that his vision is fulfilled at last — and on a scale even greater than he imagined.

The Badgers lost a 28–27 heartbreaker to Oregon in the 2020 Rose Bowl. Bryce Richter

When the Badgers host the Oregon Ducks on November 16 at Camp Randall Stadium, they will be welcoming a fresh face to the Big Ten Conference. But these football programs are already familiar foes, having first faced off in 1977 and last competed at the Rose Bowl in both 2012 and 2020.

This year’s game will be a rubber match of sorts: the all-time series is tied 3–3, with the Badgers winning the first three affairs and the Ducks prevailing in the past three. The average scoring margin over the six matchups? Five points.

For Wisconsin, that’s meant thrilling but heartbreaking losses in Pasadena. You may remember the 2012 game as the Russell Wilson MSx’13 Rose Bowl. The transfer quarterback electrified the program in his lone season as a Badger, leading the highest-scoring offense in the Big Ten. Oregon’s offense ranked third in the country, so it was no surprise when these juggernauts combined for 83 points and broke the Rose Bowl scoring record. The Badgers led 38–35 entering the fourth quarter, but the Ducks ran off 10 unanswered points to secure their first Rose Bowl win.

The teams wouldn’t meet again until the 2020 Rose Bowl, which had a similar result. Wisconsin’s 28–27 loss marked its fourth Rose Bowl defeat in a decade, all by a touchdown or less. The highlight was Aron Cruickshank x’22’s 95-yard kick return — the second-longest scoring play in Rose Bowl history. Jonathan Taylor x’21 led the Badgers with more than 100 yards from scrimmage, but four team turnovers ultimately doomed Wisconsin.

You have to go all the way back to September 9, 2000, to find better days for the Badgers in this matchup. Coming off consecutive Rose Bowl wins, Wisconsin lost its Heisman running back Ron Dayne ’17 to the NFL and 26 other players to suspension for unadvertised shoe-store discounts. But no matter: Michael Bennett x’02 rushed for a whopping 290 yards to lead the Badgers to a 27–23 win over the Ducks in Madison. (Quarterback Brooks Bollinger ’03 had to complete just five passes for 65 yards.)

The Big Ten welcomed three other programs to its ranks this year: USC, Washington, and UCLA. But Oregon is the only new member visiting Camp Randall in 2024. And that leads us to one last trend that we hope sticks: the Badgers, at press time, are undefeated at home against the Ducks.

Quarterback Darrell Bevell made the biggest — and unlikeliest — play. Jeff Miller

Thirty years ago, the Wisconsin Badgers returned to the Rose Bowl after a three-decade drought and three prior winless appearances. They clinched the bid after defeating Michigan State at the Coca-Cola Classic in Tokyo and securing a 9–1–1 record. In just four years, head coach Barry Alvarez had miraculously transformed the floundering program he inherited. There was just one thing left to do.

If you were too young to watch the 1994 Rose Bowl (like this author) or simply want to relive the glory, you can find a video on YouTube. Badger fans who invaded Pasadena coined the phrase “Camp Randall West” as they turned Rose Bowl Stadium into a sea of red — despite playing the UCLA Bruins on their home turf.

The video transports you back to the ’90s: the less-than-high-definition footage; the players’ comically large shoulder pads; the UW’s starting quarterback, Darrell Bevell ’96, also serving on special teams as the holder. But on the whole, the game action — grinding yet thrilling — wouldn’t feel entirely out of place as a Big Ten slugfest today. (And welcome to the Big Ten, UCLA.)

Before there was Ron Dayne ’17, there was Brent Moss x’95. And the Badgers rode their MVP running back in the first half, amassing more than 100 rushing yards and taking a convincing 14–3 lead. But in the second half, the Bruins seized the momentum with long drive after long drive. They likely would have taken the lead if not for six turnovers, including four costly fumbles in the final two quarters.

The game’s defining play came with 10 minutes left and the Badgers clinging to a 14–10 lead. With the pocket collapsing around him, the normally slow-footed Bevell scrambled to his left, juked a defensive back to the ground, and shuffled 21 yards along the sidelines into the end zone. Not even the TV announcer could contain his laughter on the unlikely call, as Bevell threw his arms into the air in celebration: “That blazing speed takes him into the end zone!”

Still, the Bruins pulled within five and returned to the red zone with a chance to steal the game. Inexplicably, with 15 seconds left and no time-outs, UCLA quarterback Wayne Cook dashed up the middle for a few yards, allowing the clock to expire. Camp Randall West erupted. The final score: 21–16.

For a long-suffering fan base that had just endured 23 losing seasons in 29 years, the 1994 Rose Bowl marked a proud new era of Badger athletics that lasts to this day.

Deceptive political campaign ads, circa 1960: partisans for Richard Nixon marched at the UW Homecoming game showing support for John Kennedy … to stay in the Senate. UW Archives

In the fall of 1960, a narrowly divided United States was careening toward a bitter presidential election. Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon vied for support in a race that came down to less than two-tenths of a percentage point difference — Kennedy carried 49.72 percent of the national popular vote, while Nixon had 49.55 percent. UW students got caught up in that tight race.

Kennedy worked hard to appeal to campus. He spoke to more than 12,000 students at the Wisconsin Field House in late October, less than two weeks before the vote. Bill Whitford ’61 of the Young Democrats declared approvingly that Kennedy was “devoted to foresight, not hindsight.” The conservative student publication Insight and Outlook disagreed — it said that Kennedy would “lead the ship of state into its rendezvous with bankruptcy.” (Insight and Outlook remained sour on Kennedy. After he was assassinated, it conceded that he had been “warm and friendly,” in an otherwise ungenerous obituary; Kennedy, it said, was “not an exceptionally able chief executive” who “had failed even in what he thought his mission to be.”)

That year’s election fell on November 8, and Homecoming was November 5. During the UW’s annual football festival, partisans put their allegiance on display. Nixon supporters trolled the Kennedy campaign along the sidelines at Camp Randall — presumably suggesting that voters keep Kennedy in the Senate by electing Nixon president.

Ultimately, the Badgers carrying this sign were disappointed. Nixon won Wisconsin, but Kennedy ended up in the White House. Further, Northwestern won the Homecoming game, beating the Badgers 21–0.