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Marquette football fanatic

Story by Alexa Porter | Photo by Ben Smidt

Like many Marquette sports fans, Chris Perez's office is filled with Marquette mementos. But amidst the basketball bobbleheads and Al McGuire, you'll find a wall of football programs and memorabilia dating back to the 1920s. Football, you say? Marquette doesn't even have a football team. Disbanded in 1960 because of debt and poor performances, the Marquette Golden Avalanche is a thing of the past, but that has not stopped Perez, Eng '92, Grad  '98, '03 and a current part-time law student, from collecting programs, pennants and media guides from the days when Marquette played at Marquette Stadium and County Stadium.

The collection was born in 1998, when Perez, currently the assistant dean for academic affairs in Marquette's College of Engineering, was hired as a computer support engineer. Perez was perusing eBay for Marquette pennants to decorate his office and stumbled across football programs and media guides from games played long ago. He started bidding on them — and winning. He now has so many framed programs that they no longer fit on his office wall. Perez says that the collection is a talking point when students and parents come into his office. "They will say 'I remember when Marquette had a football team,' and then launch into stories about the stadium around 36th and Clybourn," Perez says. His favorite pieces include anything with the Warriors name on it and memorabilia from games against Wisconsin. Eventually, he plans to donate his vast collection of Marquette goods to University Archives.

Would he like to see football back at Marquette one day? "It's a nice dream to have," Perez admits, though he also knows there are several practical hurdles, including the issue of funding and where to play. So for now, Perez will do what the vast majority of us here in Wisconsin do: root for the Marquette Golden Eagles basketball team and the Packers.