Years of Fordham

18 fordham summer 2007 19 125 Years of Fordham FootballBy Jack Clary, FCRH ’54 Since 1882, Fordham football has played on some of the largest stages in sports. Our history includes games before sellout crowds at the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium, a Cotton Bowl appearance and a Sugar Bowl victory, a No. 3 national ranking, the famed Seven Blocks of Granite, the student-led resurrection of the sport at Rose Hill with the club teams of the 1960s, and our most recent highlight, winning the Patriot League championship in 2002. Through the years, each team has shared a love for the game and the The 1936 Rams: Vince Lombardi (left) squats next to Alex Wojciechowicz (center) and Nat Pierce, three-sevenths of the seven Blocks of Granite line that also featured John Druze, Al Babartsky, ed Franco and Leo Paquin. Andy Palau (hands on knees) is the quarterback, and the backs (from left to right) are Frank mautte, John Lock and Al Gurske. University—a tradition that remains alive today. 20 fordham summer 2007 21 Fordham’s football legacy has an enduring quality that of fans each week. Those “Blocks” teams shut out 12 of Coach Jim Phelan and his St. Mary’s College team made 3 in the nation. The Rams also made sports broadcasting stretches back to the early 1880s, but its heart and soul 18 opponents in two seasons and only once did they allow the round-trip train ride from Moraga, California, to New history: On September 30, 1939, Fordham participated in the rest in five distinct eras that cover parts of the last 80 years. more than seven points to be scored against them. York for 12 of 13 seasons until World War II, mostly world’s first televised football game, defeating Waynesburg Though the Rams have not been a national gridiron power The 1929 team produced one of three undefeated sea- because the New York football writers gave Phelan celeb- College, 34-7. since World War II, any mention of a personal Fordham sons in the school’s history (the first came in 1886), but it rity status as he wove his unlimited repertoire of stories The bottom line for that era: an 87-20-12 record, plus affiliation to a football fan still produces a recognition of also tied two games, and those blemishes evidently cost the hour upon hour during appearances in two major bowl games. The Rams lost to sorts, one that is inevitably followed up by references to the Rams a trip to the Rose Bowl, the only postseason game of each visit. Texas A&M, 13-12, in the 1941 Cotton Bowl, but defeated Seven Blocks of Granite and Vince Lombardi (FCRH ’37). any note at that time. Seven seasons later, in 1936, when the Missouri, 2-0, in the 1942 Sugar Bowl. Such is one of the benefits of a successful high-profile second version of the Seven Blocks of Granite were so dom- Those golden years of Fordham football program, and in Ford- inant under head coach “Sleepy” football not only produced nation- ham’s case that began in the Jim Crowley, a one-point loss to Blocks7 of Granite wide popularity for the University, but 1920s, when Frank Gargan, rival New York University in the formed not one, but two of the most formidable lines in college season’s final game cost the Rams football history, helping the a trip to Pasadena again, making Rams hold opposing teams scoreless on a regular basis during the 1929, 1930, 1936 and 1937 seasons. was2 the -final0 score of the Rams’ first intercollegiate football game, an 1882 victory against Seton Hall. Two years whose first coach- later, the student editors ing stint at Rose of the Fordham Monthly Hill was interrupt- described the new sport on campus: No game, they wrote, ed by World War I hollow the rallying cry of “From Rose Hill to “requires more agility and Throughout the 1930s and early in 1917, returned fleetness of foot, or more the Rose Bowl.” 1937 1940s—until World War II inter- and won 28 games ‘nerve’ … no game brings Those stumbles in no way diminished the im- rupted the sport at Fordham from 1943 to 1945—a in five seasons. Just as importantly, into play all the powers of pact of Fordham’s football program. When the mind and body.” who’s who of college teams came to the Polo Grounds to also showcased a galaxy of some of its greatest players, in- he raised Fordham’s profile by moving Associated Press began conducting its popular play the Rams. They included Oregon State, Oregon, cluding “Blocks” Alex Wojciechowicz and Ed Franco—the some of its games to the city’s renowned weekly poll in 1936, the Rams were always Alabama, West Virginia, Michigan State, SMU, Tennes- only Rams to receive All-America honors twice. Both are baseball parks, Yankee Stadium and ranked among the nation’s top 20 teams until see, Purdue, Boston College, Georgetown, Holy Cross, enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame and among the Polo Grounds, with their 50,000-plus seating capacities. discontinuing the sport during World War II. The opportu- Vanderbilt, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tulane, the dozens of Fordham players from that era who went on Thus did New York City become a Fordham football town, nity to play in New York before tens of thousands of fans Rice, Indiana, Arkansas, and, of course, the University of to play professional football. The golden years also pro- and in turn provide the visibility that “making it” in New attracted teams from coast to coast, so the Fordham teams Pittsburgh, against whom Fordham played a record three duced three Pro Football Hall of Famers—a player, a coach York can bestow. of that era rarely played on the road. As David Maraniss consecutive scoreless ties, in 1935, 1936 and 1937. and an owner. Wojciechowicz, who played for the Detroit Fordham’s profile got another huge boost wrote in When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi During the 1936 and 1937 seasons, the Rams posted Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles during a 13-year NFL 1 9 2 9when the Iron Major, Frank Cavanaugh, (Simon & Schuster, 1999), Fordham’s “contests on autumn a 12-1-3 record. Vince Lombardi was one of the Seven career, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1968. Three succeeded Gargan as head coach in 1927 and cultivated the afternoons were held in front of thunderous crowds and Blocks of Granite on the 1936 team—the dominating group years later, his Fordham teammate Vince Lombardi, leg- first edition of the Seven Blocks of Granite. Fordham was covered by the most influential sportswriters in America, who of linemen who helped the Rams hold opposing teams endary coach of the Green Bay Packers, received the honor now solidly ensconced in the Polo Grounds, and despite the competed in prose and poetry to glorify the college game in scoreless eight times in two years. Fordham posted its last posthumously. A third Fordham alumnus from that era, Great Depression, began playing before tens of thousands more than a dozen metropolitan daily newspapers.” undefeated season (7-0-1) in 1937 and was ranked No. Wellington Mara, never played for the Rams, but went on 22 fordham summer 2007 23 to become one of the most influential owners in sports his- proper direction, but stayed as head coach for two seasons playoffs. A 3-0 loss to SUNY-Stony Brook cost the Rams a once competed before tens of thousands of spectators each tory. The longtime president and owner of the New York after the club team was elevated to Division III in 1970. second-straight NCAA playoff spot in 1988. fall Saturday at the Polo Grounds … or the gutsy “volun- Giants was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997. For six seasons, from 1964 to 1969, the club program As the club team had done before them, the efforts of teers” in the club years who played because they loved the Fordham football’s golden era ended during World War flourished with a 23-13-1 record, and just one losing sea- those Division III players and coaches set the stage for game as much as they loved representing their University. II. The University re- son. It was consistently ranked among the nation’s top Fordham’s next upward move—to the NCAA’s Division To that, we say: Hail, Men of Fordham, Hail! instated the sport in club teams. Geography was no deterrent. The Rams played I-AA in 1990, as a member —Jack Clary, FCRH ’54, was a sportswriter and newspaper 1946, after a three-year games in New Orleans, Washington, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. of the newly formed Patriot columnist in New York and Boston for 15 years before absence, but the old Louis, as well as at sites in the Northeast. The team’s steady League. While they struggled becoming a freelance author. He has written some 65 books saw that “you can’t go success proved to the University that a varsity program on sports. He is a member of Fordham’s Athletic Hall of home again” proved Fordham3 alumni could be sustained, though that Fame and a recipient of the Mara Family Award, presented true for the Rams. The are enshrined in the Pro message really had been sent on by the Fordham Gridiron Club. Football Hall of Fame in Canton, field5 goals Photos and images courtesy of Fordham University Archives. following nine seasons November 14, 1964, when the by Matt Fordyce (FCRH ’03) Ohio.

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