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Northwestern is Kanye's Big Ten Team

Kanye West named his baby North West, the latest line in a list of things that make me think the No Church in the Wildcats should call themselves Kanye's Big Ten Team.

By Rodger Sherman

So Friday, the news broke that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian had their baby. ZOMG HUGE NEWS. (Personally, I was more interested in Kanye's other major release this past week.)

The name? North West. You see, Kanye's last name is a direction, and now his baby's first name is a direction too. When you combine his baby's first and last names, you get another direction. As you might have noticed, its the same direction that lends its name to the university whose sports teams this website is dedicated to covering.

Normally, I'd brush this off as a happy coincidence, but Kanye has made some moves related to Chicago's Big Ten Team. We already discussed how one of the locations where Kanye broadcast video of his new songs was Ryan Field:

But he did it again a few weeks later: Kanye was clearly impressed by his 2005 performance at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

So then I got to thinking: Northwestern is never going to be Chicago's Big Ten Team. Sure, it's our advertising slogan and everything, and it's worked out well sparking interest in the city of 2 million people just to the south of the suburb where Northwestern plays football, but it's unrealistic. Most of those Chicagoans already have rooting interests in one of the most vibrant sports communities in the country -- go Hawks! -- and Northwestern is trying to squeeze itself in.

But Northwestern CAN become Chicago's Rappers' Big Ten Team -- we already got Common, although I don't think Chief Keef is gonna be along for the ride -- starting with becoming Kanye's Big Ten Team. In fact, I think we're already there:

It's Kanye but some of my plaques they still say Kayne

Is he saying "Kayne," as in, "people are still misspelling my name on Grammy plaques?" Or is he saying "Kain," as in, "Big Ten first-team QB Kain Colter?" Kanye's ahead of his time, sometimes years out.

After the news of Kanye's baby name broke on Friday, people on Twitter began really investigating lyrics from Ye's catalog:

And his album titles:

I'm sure there's more out there, but I'm going to need your help going through his lyrics to find the best Northwestern-themed things I missed. If you have Kanye Northwestern #JOKEZ, leave it in the comments or Tweet it at me or something.

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