Leading Off

THE ARTIFACTS PRESENTED ON THESE PAGES, ALL ON display at UW's football office, make clear just how much has changed over the years. Today, Cheeseheads are protected from errant—and not-so-errant—fingers by bullrings and horizontal bars, like those on Ron Dayne's cagey contraption. But when Arlie Mucks toiled in the trenches in 1914, little more than leather (below, left) cradled his cranium. And a replica of Pat Richter's two-bar model (below, center), produced for the 2005 reopening of Camp Randall, shows just how vulnerable players' faces remained into the '60s. Overexposure remained an issue well into the '80s, as evidenced by Al Toon's midriff-baring mesh jersey. Britney Spears would have been proud.

SOME OF THE RELICS ON THESE PAGES ARE BOUND TO STAY on campus for good, like those towering nods (bottom left) to the Badgers' three conference championships since 1962 and the crystal trophy (below) commemorating the '93 win over MSU in Tokyo that clinched a Rose Bowl berth. Others, like Barry Alvarez's diamond-encrusted Rose Bowl and Big Ten title rings, are simply waiting for a day when the coach turned AD wants to look fabulous. And then there's Paul Bunyan's Axe, which goes to the winner of the annual Wisconsin-Minnesota game. (The last 60 scores are etched on the handle.) That prize is on loan, but no need to pack it up just yet. UM was 0-8 in the Big Ten last year and has lost to UW 11 of the last 13 years.

OH, THOSE WERE THE DAYS. WHEN WISCONSIN AND NAVY met at Baltimore Stadium in 1945, a game ticket (top left) cost a mere $1.81—about as much as any fan would pay to watch UW lose 36-7. Six years later the Badgers eked out a 6-0 win in 30-mph winds against Indiana in "the blizzard game" (top right); by '62 they were racking up All-Americas, including end Pat Richter (left); but when they faced Iowa in '77, admission still cost less than a Hamilton (top). Twenty-two years later, when UW reached the '99 Rose Bowl, entrance fees had soared, but by then the Badgers were worth the price, thanks largely to Alvarez, who'd put his mark on the program—just as he would on a commemorative ball after UW upset UCLA 38-31.