Buffalo Bulls
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The University at Buffalo offers 20 Division I intercollegiate sports that compete at the highest level of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The 20 sports are: football, baseball, softball, women's volleyball, men's and women's basketball, wrestling, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's soccer, women's rowing and men's and women's indoor and outdoor track and field. The University at Buffalo competes in the prestigious Mid-American Conference (MAC) in all of those sports except for women's rowing, which is not sponsored by the conference.
UB plays its home football games and track and field events at UB Stadium (capacity 29,020), opened in 1993 in conjunction with the World University Games, and its basketball, wrestling and volleyball events at Alumni Arena, which has a capacity of 6,100 following renovations during the summer of 2004. The Alumni Arena Natatorium is home to the Bulls' swimming teams, the soccer teams use the RAC (Recreation and Athletic Complex) Soccer Field and UB Stadium, while the tennis teams use the world-class University Tennis Center. The women's softball team competes at Nan Harvey Field adjacent to UB Stadium while the baseball team plays across the street at Amherst Audubon Field.
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[edit] Halftime protest at 1970 Holy Cross football game
Unrest on campus during the Vietnam War era was especially magnified by one major incident that took place at a UB football game televised by ABC. This was the October 31, 1970 football game against Holy Cross. Throughout the fall semester, the campus was getting ready for what was being termed a “moratorium,” a march through Niagara Square, followed by heading over to Rotary Field that afternoon for the game for more protesting. The protestors were intent on making themselves seen and heard all across the United States. The game would also showcase a halftime show, featuring the UB “Pride of the East” marching band.
Since the beginning of the summer, there had been a flurry of controversy over the content of the halftime show. The administration handed the duty of filling the halftime show over to the Student Association, under the assumption that they would create a peaceful moratorium. Among some of the more unfeasible proposals suggested were a movie to be shown on student life and a re-enactment of guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. With no ideas agreed on, the Student Association turned over the entire halftime show to the marching band three weeks before the game. This performance would be used as an entrance into a national band competition, so the band was eager to perform well, and to perform an edgy show to catch the eye of the judges.
However, they would need to get their program approved by ABC due to network rules. No halftime shows with political implications were allowed. A new script was written, but the only part that changed was the narration, which would not be heard anyway, since ABC did not have their microphones turned on at halftime. The situation garnered national coverage in an article by Paul Zimmerman of the New York Post. None of this press had anything to do with the upcoming game however, and everything to do with the halftime controversy.
The day started off without a hitch. The morning demonstration at Niagara Square proved to be quite peaceful. The protestors than made their way to Rotary Field for the UB-Holy Cross football game. The first half came and went without scoring, as many in attendance anticipated the halftime show. However, the only people who saw the show were those in attendance and the network censors. ABC decided to black out the marching band’s performance and showed traffic traveling on Main Street and Bailey Avenue outside of the stadium instead. The band’s performance went on as scheduled, going into formations resembling peace signs, polluting smokestacks, a missile, and the initials “MLK” honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Among the songs played were “Give Peace a Chance,” “On the Eve of Destruction,” and “Ohio,” a song honoring those killed at Kent State in May 1970.
About 100 demonstrators however realized that the ABC cameras were not focusing on the middle of the field showing the halftime show. They saw that the cameras were pointed at the street and became irate. After the marching band’s show ended, they stormed the field in protest, shouting obscenities directed at ABC and “Power to the People.” A sign that said “Buffalo Welcomes ABC” was torn down. The game was delayed several minutes as the rowdy demonstrators ran amok until finally being escorted off of the field by police.
Afterwards, one demonstrator said that they should have held an armed demonstration. The demonstrators left immediately after being escorted from the field, and did not watch the second half of the game. The social climate at UB collided with the football team on that day.
[edit] Football
[edit] UB cancels football in January, 1971
The resentment of the administration towards football over the Holy Cross halftime incident is quite evident in the claim the a University Task Force made in a report following an investigation that was ordered by school President Robert L. Ketter. While the protest at halftime of the Holy Cross game was not a financial reason for football to be cancelled, it appears to have given the University a justification to cancel the team without publicly going to much effort in asking for monetary help.
When President Ketter made his announcement to cancel football on January 11, 1971, he blamed lagging attendance as a major factor in dropping football. During the turbulent summer on campus in 1970, the University was having trouble selling tickets to its football games at Rotary Field. Season ticket sales declined from nearly 9,000 in 1969, to just over 3,000 in 1970. The main reason why fans were not buying tickets was because of the situation on campus. The previous winter during basketball season, the African American basketball players walked out on the team, declaring Head Coach Leonard Serfustini to be a racist. They attempted to use the walkout to get the coach fired, but eventually softened their stance and were unsuccessful. Several of the players transferred to other schools and only after that did Serfustini lose his job in the summer of 1970. Fans were still uneasy with the University’s sports programs after this incident.
The money lost from the 6,000 season tickets could have helped in saving UB football, but it would not have been a total cure. The team was several hundred thousand dollars in debt, thanks to the cancellation of the mandatory athletic fee in 1967 by then-President Martin Meyerson. The fee would therefore become voluntary, only to be paid by students who chose to. The University at Buffalo football team cost $400,000 to run each year from 1963-70. $129,000 of this amount came from the mandatory student athletic fee until after the 1967 season, when the fee was abolished. In January 1968, the fee was made voluntary and created a $150,000 loss in revenue that had to be made up in loans from the Faculty Student Association. Students however were not told of this $150,000 loss in revenue until after the mandatory athletic fee was made voluntary.
Due to the financial problems, it was very difficult for the sports teams at UB, especially football to schedule games for future seasons. This was due to the great uncertainty on campus on how the athletics department should be funded. Over the course of three years, the University still had not hammered down a plan on how to fund athletics, and the athletics department could not make commitments to play teams, as they were unsure if they could honor them. The football program had begun the difficult scheduling process for the 1971 season during the fall of 1970, and secured only four out of ten possible commitments for the 1971 season by early November 1970.
After President Ketter announced the cancellation of the football team, an ad hoc committee was formed to appeal to the State University of New York for the needed funding for the football program. They wanted an annual sum of money in order to keep the team afloat. Members of this committee included alumni, students, and faculty who felt that UB would get this funding from SUNY for being the cornerstone school in the SUNY system. The committee also wanted to lobby ABC to possibly televise another game for the 1971 season. The committee felt confident money from these two sources would provide enough money for the program, allowing President Ketter to reverse the cancellation of the team.
The committee’s attempt to lobby in Albany for state money had support from Lieutenant Governor Malcolm Wilson. Wilson stated: “I’ve been trying to get an appropriation for intercollegiate football since last year and I’m continuing my efforts to secure appropriation. The problem lies in the fact that football is in competition with many other good causes.” Another problem though would lay in SUNY’s stance on giving money to athletics causes, which is something they had not done previously. They also had never given an opinion on what its stance was on the importance of intercollegiate athletics at its member institutions.
The committee’s attempts fell on deaf ears. SUNY never even acknowledged the committee, which drew heavy criticism from football team Head Coach Bill Deming. Deming said: “The SUNY system is behind the times, even when it comes to education. The high echelon of SUNY should be eager to see intercollegiate football here. What they have done is to bring us down to the level of mediocrity of the rest of the system.” Without any money or even acknowledgement of its existence from SUNY, the efforts of the ad hoc committee were doomed and the organization folded.
With the appeal to the state having failed, no mandatory athletic fee on the horizon, and the daunting task of scheduling six football games for an uncertain season, the UB football team was officially dead.
[edit] Football's return in 1977
The modern era of UB football began on October 8, 1977. After a gap of seven years, UB football returned with a bang. Under Head Coach Bill Dando, the Bulls took to the field on that rainy Saturday afternoon against the Tigers of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Although the Bulls did not receive the opening kickoff they did run the first play from scrimmage that day.
RIT fumbled the opening kickoff and the Bulls recovered the ball on the RIT 41. On the first play from scrimmage in seven seasons Mark Gabriel scampered 41 yards off left tackle for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead for the Bulls. RIT would score to tie the game. The rain eventually became monsoon-like. UB’s only other scoring chance of the day fell short when Rich Phillips slipped while trying to kick a game winning filed goal in the second half on a field that could best be described at that time as a quagmire. The game ended in a tie. Although it was UB’s first game back it was also the last tie game in the history of the school.
The Bulls finished their first season with a record of 0-3-1 after losses to Canisius, at Brockport and the Coast Guard Academy. In attendance at the Canisus game was O.J. Simpson and two of his teammates with NFL's Buffalo Bills. The Bulls gained their first win of the modern era the following fall when they beat Brockport 35-31 on a late pass from quarterback Jimmy Rodriquez to Gary Quatrani. That play was similar to the first play from scrimmage that afternoon that also went for a touchdown when the speedster Quatrani was hidden by lining up as a tight end.
[edit] Football in Modern Era
In the modern era, which began as a Division III program in 1977, the Bulls have been run by six coaches. The first coach who led the Bulls for 13 seasons was Bill Dando. He was followed by Sam Sanders (2 seasons) and James Ward (3 seasons). In 1993 the Bulls upgraded the program to a Division I-AA program under Coach Ward. Following Coach Ward was Craig Cirbus, who returned to his alma mater for the 1995 season after a long tenure as an assistant to legendary Penn State Coach Joe Paterno. Under Cirbus, the Bulls moved up to the Division I-A level in 1999. Cirbus was replaced in 2001 by Jim Hofher. Hofher lead the Bulls for five seasons. He was replaced by legendary Nebraska quarterback Turner Gill for the 2006 season.
When Gill was hired he gave UB the distinction of being the only Division I-A school in the country with an African American Athletic Director, head football coach and head men’s basketball coach.[1] Even more interesting is the fact that none of three African Americans at UB are the first African Americans to hold those positions. The first African American AD at UB was Nelson Townsend and the position is currently held by Warde Manuel. James Ward was the first African American head football coach at UB in the early 1990s. Reggie Witherspoon was preceded as head men’s basketball coach by Leo Richardson in the early to mid-1970s and interim head coach Ken Pope in the early 1980s.
The Bulls finished 2-10 during the 2006 season, an improvement of 1 win over 2005. The season began on a high note with an overtime victory over Temple for the school's first home opening win since a 1998 victory over Lock Haven. The season was a trying time for Gill and his young squad, featuring road trips to such nationally ranked powerhouses as Auburn, Boston College, and Wisconsin. The Bulls acquitted themselves well against Auburn and Wisconsin, keeping the game with Auburn close for much of the game. The Bulls had an opportunity to take the lead late in the first half against Wisconsin, but the offense stalled and could not score from a 1st and goal situation. The other win of the season occurred over a surprisingly resurgent Kent State squad. A 41-14 victory ensued, giving the Bulls arguably their most impressive win since re-entering Division 1-A in 1999. The season did have its share of lowlights, however, as blowout losses to Central Michigan and Ball State on Homecoming featured particularly dreadful performances. Gill enters his first full recruiting season on a mission to improve the Bulls, especially on a small defensive line that was routinely pushed around in 2006.
All UB football home games are broadcasted for free on the WGR website at www.wgr550.com.
[edit] UB as a leader in civil rights
This followed the tradition of UB being in forefront of civil rights in the college athletics. Leeland Jones, Jr. was the first African American to play in a college football game south of the Mason Dixon line in 1941. [2] In 1958 the Bulls turned down an invitation to the 1958 Tangerine Bowl in Orlando when the organizers of the game would not allow the Bulls to play their three African American players because of a local law prohibiting integrated sporting events in Orlando. [3]
[edit] UB Soccer
In 2005, the Buffalo Bulls men's soccer team had its best season to date. The team compiled a 14-3-2 record, closing the regular season out with 8 straight victories. The Bulls reached the Mid-American Conference championship game where they were eliminated by the Akron Zips in penalty kicks.
[edit] UB Cross Country
In 2005, the Buffalo Bulls men's cross country team finished 11th at NCAA northeast D1 Regionals, behind Yale (10th).
