Just learned sad news on a Wabash football Alum.  Kurt Lightcap '83 has passed away at 63.  He was a starting OL on the Wabash "82 team that went undefeated.

Debbie Lightcap Roberts is with Kurt Lightcap.

With a heavy heart, I want to share this with you about the loss of my brother.
Our hearts are heavy as we announce the passing of Kurt Frank Lightcap, aged 63. He passed unexpectedly in Chicago, Illinois on April 22, 2025. Kurt was born in Valparaiso, Indiana on September 2, 1962, to Frank and Evelyn Lightcap.
He attended Valparaiso High School in Valparaiso, Indiana and Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He studied abroad at Oxford, London and later received his Master of Business Administration at Northwestern University. He played football throughout high school and college and took great pride in his senior year at Wabash, when the team went undefeated. His love and enthusiasm for sports continued throughout his life. He most recently was an assistant coach of the men's rugby team at Loyola University and enjoyed fishing and hunting. He also took great pride in supporting his nieces and nephews in their sports and activities.
Kurt had a diverse career in commodities and finance that spanned multiple locations and companies. He most recently was the Head of Operations at Plus500 US Financial in Chicago, Illinois. Though his career he also worked in the Financial Districts in New York and London. He was well known and well respected in this industry.
Kurt cherished spending time with family and friends and loved traveling. He was deeply loved and in touch with a great number of friends from around the country and abroad. Kurt and his wife of 28 years, Stacy, enjoyed traveling to Alaska, Fiji, Hawaii, and Mexico.
Kurt is preceded in death by his parents, Frank and Evelyn Lightcap, his father-in-law, Paul (Denny) Robertson, and his niece, Ashlee Duttlinger.  He is survived by his wife, Stacy Lightcap; his sisters, Gail (Carl) Schurman, Carol (Dave) Little, and Deborah (Eace) Roberts; his mother-in-law Susie Robertson, his sisters-in-law Wendy Solberg and Teresa Phillips; his nieces and nephews Chris Roberts, Erica Applegate, Derek Schurman, Erin Moore, Brett Roberts, Ryan Solberg, Nicole Solberg, AJ Elgersma, Paul Phillips, Shalyn Phillips, and Tyler Phillips; 11 great nieces and nephews and 3 great, great nieces and nephews.   
A visitation will be held on Wednesday, April 30th from 3:00pm-7:00pm at Dykes Funeral Home in Valparaiso, IN (2305 North Campbell Street Valparaiso, IN 46385). A funeral mass will be conducted at St. Paul's Catholic Church on May 1st at 10:00 am in Valparaiso, IN (1855 Harrison Boulevard Valparaiso, IN 46385). Refreshments to follow. A burial service will be held at a later date in Hawarden, Iowa. Contributions can be made to Wabash College, class of 1983 at www.Wabash.edu/give and an Endowed Scholarship in Kurt's name to the men's rugby team at Loyola University www.LUC.edu/KurtFrankLightcapMemorial.

Well, I hope for entertaining basketball from all the NCAC teams.  Wabash has a seven foot transfer from Northern Kentucky.  That ought to be interesting.

Smeds, to be honest I often wondered about that...  I like the way they kind of sidestepped the whole "we got whupped" by Depauw in the school's article.

Carrera, most likely the same place you were, Martindale Hall...pretty obvious you put 2 and 2 to figure out who I am.  Li'l Giant, you are likely right, so I plan to save some keystrokes as well.  The wife and I haven't been to the new football digs in good old C'ville, too much real life getting in the way.  May be putting that off indefinitely.

Bullis I would be a lot more willing to cut some slack, Carrera.  His lone stop as a HC is Whitewater.  He's 78-13 with 2 - 3 loss seasons in 7 years of games, but also NCAA Playoffs in 6 of those seasons in a much tougher conference.  Morel is 87-74 in 2 HC stops.  I might give him credit as an offensive coordinator, but his HC skills are not up to the standards that Wabash has come to expect.  His special teams are abysmal and I am still very worried about the defense.  He may be a very nice guy, and that's great, but the output on the field is lacking.  Eventually, it will impact recruiting (as it seemingly already has to some extent) and the 6-4 will become common. 

As far as the 2-3 loudmouths on the boards, I know I am not alone in feeling this way.  A number of Alums I have spoken with are not happy with the state of affairs, and losing badly to Depauw in a crucial game doesn't help that at all.  You pointing out that Wabash only having one losing season since 1975 seems to back up my point about expectations much more so than yours.  We brag about our wins in our PR materials.  Also, some of these "board loudmouths" you so deride are lettermen who are well aware of the history of our program and what that entails.

The Administration have to know, after the last 20+ years, that routinely going 7-3 or 6-4 will not be acceptable to the Alumni nor the overall student body.  Critical thinking will show them that it will hurt recruiting, if it already hasn't.  One thing I have noticed is that a lot of our players are smaller than what we were used to.  Shorter, nor quite as heavy (for OL in particular).  I remember that our coaches in the 1980's lamented that we had to contend with both the single sex issue as well as fighting schools at every level for the smart, well rounded players.  We have managed to (mostly) overcome the all male issue, but the smart, well rounded kids are ever harder to compete for.  Getting smoked in the Bell Game this year will definitely impact our recruiting, possibly for several years. Also, the football alums that financed the new stadium won't be satisfied with 7-3 and 6-4. Time will tell how this plays out.

And this is exactly what I was afraid of.  It's happened before.  It's happening again.  And there is zero reason why we cannot have both "quality student athletes" and a winning championship program at Wabash except for complacency and shall we say laziness in our leadership regarding the issue?  It will end up costing the school dollars eventually.

I am sure that the College is okay with something above mediocrity as long as it fills the seats.  That doesn't mean the fan base is all that supportive.  We start regularly having 7-3 or 6-4 (or worse) with no conference championships or NCAA trips will cause a drop off both in the quality of recruits and the supportiveness of the fans and alums.  We will see, I guess.  As far as the other question I posed, that was what I was interested in knowing.

It would be interesting in the Dannies get to play NCC, but yeah, I kinda want them to get toasted by CMU.  Just out of curiousity, would Mr. Hammer have any interest in returning from Bowdoin if the top spot was available here?  Just wondering...

Dang Smeds, talk about damning with faint praise.  No, I think the problems (rot?) goes much deeper than just "fixing the D."  Watching these last few teams I notice a distinct lack of toughness and I place that firmly on how they are coached.  We spend all this money on new digs for football, we didn't do this for 7-3 and 6-4 teams.  Yeah, I know a lot of programs would love that, be we have moved past that point as a program (or we were past that point...now, not so much).  As someone who has followed Wabash Football since I as a pre-teen, color me extremely dissatisfied with the product placed on the field.  We managed to have really great student-athletes and still contend for championships and semi-regular NCAA appearances because we had coached who knew how to coach them up (and yes, lost them to higher level programs, but that is the price one pays for better than average coaches).  No one is kicking the doors in for Morel and company.  This is my take, your mileage may vary.

QuoteAnd for the record — you will not hear me questioning Coach Morel or the leadership of this team. I admit there are some issues, but this program (once again) recruits, retains and graduates good Wabash men while doing it within the rules and the Spirit of the College.

Well, while you may well be right about that, so did Chris Creighton and Eric Raeburn with a much more entertaining and satisfying product on the field.  The Morel hiring was completely uninspiring and the results of it has showed up on the field.

This game has just been brutal for the Little Giants.  We don't look excited.  Constant arm tackle attempts.  We are being thoroughly out-coached (not that it surprises me).  Give it to Depauw, they really wanted this, particularly after last year's game.  I hope for a come back but...

Color me confused, what team are you referring to?

Li'l Giant, I agree 100%.  The vision is lacking on the defensive coaching side of the ball for sure.  I kind of dread the Bell Game this year...

Kept track of this train wreck on the Wabash Athletics App.  What a depressing day for Wabash Football.  Simply underlines how the "mighty" have fallen.  I was worried with the Rose game to start the season and little since then has been reassuring.  I imagine the Football Alums that helped finance the rebuilt Little Giants Stadium are not very happy about this situation.  What happens if we end this season with 3 (or more) losses?