It is a great time to be a Wildcat fan, an even better time to be a Wildcat

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Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald,, center, walks off the field after an NCAA college football game against Iowa, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Iowa City, Iowa. Northwestern won 14-10. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) ORG XMIT: IACN111

Let’s get the disclaimers out of the way first. I went to Northwestern. I played scholarship football. I graduated.

Many, many years ago.

But right now, in modern times, Northwestern has reached a stellar point in academics and athletics that seemed impossible back in the day.

Indeed, the entire school should take a bow.

This isn’t Purple Pride speaking. It’s fact. The school’s academics and selectivity and academic ranking and new construction — well, you can look it up for yourselves. It’s way big.

Then the sports. Not only are the 19 varsity teams at NU — 11 for women, eight for men — achieving nicely on the fields, courts, pools, etc., they are absolutely killing it in the classroom. According to the most recent NCAA data, Northwestern’s 98 percent overall graduation rate is the best in the Big Ten by a long shot and tied for best in the nation.

Most impressive, the football team, winner of the West Division for the first time and 19th in the College Football Playoff rankings, has a 99 percent graduation rate, the best of any Football Bowl Subdivision school in the country.

Think of that.

Lunkhead jocks specializing in controlled mayhem are also classroom aces.

It somewhat boggles the mind. Maybe all those dudes are majoring in leisure studies or ankle-taping, but the school got rid of those majors after I left. (Kidding!) Even with tutors, you gotta knuckle down to graduate from NU.

Beyond that, the athletic department, behind Jim Phillips, the vice president for athletics & recreation, has been on a fundraising and construction roll that rivals the booming Old West.

‘‘We’ve raised over $440 million in the last four years,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘The school itself is in the process of raising $4 billion, which will likely go to $5 billion. We have a new $270 million lakefront sports facility, a $120 million refurbishing of the basketball arena, new venues for soccer, lacrosse, tennis, on and on. This is a moment in time that Northwestern can be proud of.’’

Phillips, who has been at NU for 11 years, is well-rewarded for his vision, passion and ethics. Indeed, at $1.57 million per year, he is the second-best-paid athletic director in the country, behind only Notre Dame’s Jack Swarbrick (a crazy $3.05 million).

It might not be going too far to say Phillips, who has five kids of his own and comes from a Chicago family of 12, loves the NU athletes as if they were kin. He does, in fact, call them ‘‘family.’’ He has every one of them — all 504 — over to his house at sometime during the year, to talk and eat.

And he wants them to be fulfilled not just as athletes, but as people.

Indeed, what he is most proud of, besides that amazing graduation rate, is the community service the athletes perform — some 5,600 hours last year, or about a day and a half of full-time work for every athlete at a shelter, a hospital, a YMCA and so on.

OK, enough throat-clearing.

Because here’s the craziest thing. Phillips invited NU’s entire undergraduate student body, roughly 8,000 students, to come to the Wildcats’ Big Ten championship game against Michigan or Ohio State in Indianapolis on Dec. 1. For free!

As far as is known, nobody has ever done something like that at a major college.

‘‘It started after the Iowa game [the 14-10 victory that sealed the Cats’ West championship],’’ Phillips said. ‘‘I wasn’t filled with joy. I lay in bed that night and wondered if we would just travel the way big programs do. I tossed and turned. What about the students? I woke up, went to Mass, and I thought, ‘What if we could offer a free trip to everybody?’ ’’

Bingo. On came a donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, to buy all the needed tickets. (Don’t forget, Phillips could talk a squirrel out of its acorns with a sales pitch.) The school kicked in the transportation and food costs, and — Boola-boola!

‘‘I thought maybe we’d get a thousand students,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘But over 3,500 are going. We have 58 buses from a dozen companies. I don’t think there’s a bus left in Chicago.’’

The tough thing? He had to cut off the requests last week because there were literally no more buses to be had.

But he’s still proud.

‘‘That’s 45 percent of the student body going,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘Ohio State has 40,000 students [actually 46,000]. Think if they got that percentage?’’

Yes, it’s a good time at NU. But Phillips, the eternal optimist, thinks it could be better. How?

‘‘A 100 percent graduation rate,’’ he said, with nary a grin.

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