Most of those who care, from the twenty-odd canceled college football programs in California, can boast of their institutions’ glory years. They are often forgotten, except for a few surviving alumni, old school newspapers, dusty trophy cases, and ancient Sports Hall of Fame lists. Each program had its successful coaches; some were legendary personalities, conference championships, outstanding seasons, bowl game appearances, high national ranking, and players who went on to pro careers. There are stories of amazing comebacks and upsets, exciting last-minute plays, huge crowds, and festive homecoming activities. These are largely unknown to current students, faculty, and administrators in the two-dozen colleges that abandoned football programs in our state.

     Perhaps the most storied of the former California football teams is the 1951 University of San Francisco Dons. Like its neighboring Catholic universities, Santa Clara and St. Mary’s, USF once was a major football power. They haven’t had a team since 1982, and the more recent years were not all that stellar, but the university still remembers 1951. 

     The 1951 team is remembered as the undefeated, untied, and uninvited squad. It was perhaps the best college football team in history. They went 9-0, had nine players drafted into the pros, three made the Hall of Fame, and five played in the Pro Bowl. Their coach went on to head coaching positions for Notre Dame and NFL teams, and their young sports information director, USF alum, Pete Rozelle, became the NFL commissioner in 1960, serving until 1989. He is remembered as the most powerful commissioner in professional sports. All this came from one team of about forty guys, mostly from the Bay Area and nearby Central Valley, in an all-male college of just 1,276 students.

      The ‘51 team was the best of the independent college teams in the West and ranked fourteenth nationally among major football programs. But this is not why they are remembered today. The surviving teammates have been honored at bowl games, reunions, hall of fame dinners, and even in an ESPN documentary, “ ’51 Dons”, narrated by singer Johnny Mathis, friend to two of the star players. (Mathis sang at my aunt’s party in Ukiah when he was starting his career.)

     Little known at the time, the reason the team is so famous today is for a game they didn’t play. Because of their success, it was hoped they would get an invite to one of the bowl games. The athletic department was deeply in debt. The 70,000 dollars that a bid to a bowl game would earn would shore up its expenses and highlight its program. At the time, the major bowl games were all in the South. The Orange Bowl committee sought a California team to play against an SEC team. USF was considered on their radar.

     In mid-November the undefeated Dons traveled to Stockton to play the tough College of the Pacific Tigers, ranked as high as 16^th in the nation earlier in their season. Eyes were on both teams for possible bowl bids. They played in what was eventually named Amos Alonzo Stagg Stadium for their longtime famous coach, who had retired only five years before. Stagg was known as the old man of football, an innovator inventing the man-in-motion play and the lateral. He is also known for establishing the first five-man basketball squads so his football players could play each other off-season to stay in shape. I played in that stadium when our UCSB Gaucho team traveled to play the Tigers my senior year. The stadium was demolished in 2012 and reemerged as the venue for women’s field hockey and a tennis complex. The University of the Pacific no longer fields a football team.

     Tensions were high as the Dons entered the stadium in front of 41,600 fans. USF dominated the game, winning 47-14. The San Francisco fans, as was their habit during a season where the Dons crushed most teams by large margins, sang Huddie Leadbelly’s “Good Night Irene” as the game ended, rubbing it in to the dejected home fans. The Weavers’ version of the song had been number one on the top ten record charts for thirteen weeks in 1950 and came to symbolize a knock-out punch and also a lament over a profligate past. Ouch!

     The Dons had to travel to Pasadena to meet Loyola College in the Rose Bowl Stadium the following week. A win might secure a bowl bid. They crushed the Lions 35-14. On the train going home, the coaches informed the team that the university had received calls from the Orange Bowl committee indicating they were being considered for the prestigious New Year’s game.

     Imagine how this would have felt for players who had just completed a stunning undefeated season after hard months of grueling practice, under a coach known as “The Barracuda” for all the pain he put his players through. As one player recalled, he thought they were a track team because all they did was “run, run, run and hit, hit, hit.” The summer two-a-day practices were held in Corning, 170 miles north of cool, foggy San Francisco, in blistering heat. Players sought the minimal shade of telephone poles and sipped water from leaky pipes during practices. The effort paid off. Going to a top bowl game, which would also take the football program out of debt, was their hard-earned reward.

     There was one caveat. The Orange Bowl was in Miami in segregated territory. No “Negro” players would be allowed to accompany the team. This was something the USF players could not understand. USF had integrated football teams since 1930. They played mostly Western and Northern teams and could not understand why their two star Black players would be banned from participation. It was all or none. They were as much a family as a team and voted unanimously to not accept a bowl bid unless all the players could go.

     As guard Dick Columbi put it, “No, we’re not going to leave ‘em at home . . . we’re going to play with ‘em or not going to play.” Their season ended there, victorious beyond just the win, loss record.

     Two days after the season ended, the university administration decided to cut their financial losses and drop the football program. A bowl bid would have saved it.

     Though USF no longer supports a football team, the legacy of the ’51 Dons is an important part of the school’s identity.

     Pacific did get a bowl bid as the second highest ranked independent team in the West, behind USF. They lost to Texas Tech, Border Conference champions, at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, 25-14.

     The story of the ’51 Dons was the topic of Kristine Clark’s book Undefeated, Untied, Uninvited, published in 2002. She learned much about this team from Pete Rozelle and she also attended USF. She called the Orange Bowl administrators in an attempt to have the 1951 Dons players honored at the half-time of an Orange Bowl game. They knew nothing of the story and informed her there was no record of refusing to invite USF because of their two Black players. The 1951 committee invited number thirteen ranked Virginia, who refused to go because their administration wanted to avoid “big-time, subsidized football.” The game ended up between SEC co-champ Georgia Tech, number five, versus number nine, second-place Southwest Conference team Baylor. Tech won in the segregated contest.

     The ’51 Dons finally did get to go to a bowl game. The surviving former players were honored at halftime during the 2008 Fiesta Bowl.

     Who were these football heroes? They weren’t the first students to play for the University of San Francisco. The beginning of Dons football is recorded as 1917, when the Jesuit school was known as St. Ignatius Academy, and the team was called the Grey Fog. The school was founded as far back as 1855, long before football came into existence in anything like its current form. St. Ignatius eventually featured both high school and college level programs, suffering through the 1906 earthquake and fire and moving locations. In 1930, the name was changed to the University of San Francisco.

     No team was fielded in 1918 during the war, as the small male college contributed members to the war effort. USF teams seemed to come and go. There were no teams on record from 1920 to 1923. The program returned in 1924, playing a mix of clubs, colleges, and military teams. In 1927, the Grey Fog Eleven began a long-term series with local Catholic college rivals Santa Clara and St. Mary’s. The series stopped for a while during WWII, then resumed until football was dropped after the fantastic but fatal 1951 season. USF also began competition against other Catholic colleges, including Loyola of Los Angeles and Gonzaga of Spokane. Home games eventually were played in Kezar Stadium, later home to the 49ers pro team. Crowds could be large when local rivals St. Mary’s or Santa Clara were opponents.

       The 1930s was a rough one for the US economy but generally a respectable one for both the newly minted University of San Francisco Grey Fog football teams and for a moral stance taken by the administration. In 1930 USF welcomed African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and new immigrants to their campus. USF was one of the first universities to integrate its football teams in the nation. Starting tackle Isiah Fletcher was the first Black player for the Grey Fog.

       The 1930 season had a respectable 6-3 winning record, playing a mix of their Catholic rivals, military teams, the University of Nevada, and the famous Olympic Club of San Francisco.

       In 1931, they compiled a 4-4-1 record, adding BYU to their schedule and traveling to play the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors in Honolulu Stadium. (I traveled with the Gauchos in 1967 to play on a muddy Honolulu Stadium field in front of a huge local crowd there for a game honoring the local American Legion organizations. We lost to the Warriors but had a wonderful time in Hawaii. Maybe that is why we lost.)  The old stadium, known as Termite Palace, was torn down in 1974 and was replaced with Aloha Stadium. The old site is now a public park. The USF season included the usual college rivals, plus the Olympic Club and the West Coast Army team, tying both.

      Things went downhill in 1932 as the Great Depression loomed over the nation. They played all their games but one in Kesar, finally beating the Olympic Club and traveling down to play Loyola in Wrigley Field, a minor league baseball venue. They won that game handily but lost to their local rivals, Santa Clara and St. Mary’s. They lost to a tough Stanford Indians squad in their opening game.

     As the Depression continued, so did the fate of the 1933 team. They had just one win against Gonzaga and tied Loyola in a scoreless contest. All the games except one were at Kezar and that game was played in the Seals minor league baseball stadium. (I attended my first pro baseball game as a kid, watching the Seals play in that stadium. The Giants were still in Brooklyn.) Most of their games were close contests, including their games against Stanford and Oregon. It was their lowest ranking ever as Western Independents.

      Things picked up gradually during the 1934 season. They traveled to Corvallis for their opening game and beat Oregon State 10-0. They lost to Santa Clara and Stanford in close contests. The total points scored for and against during all the season games, except Gonzaga, equaled only 16 for vs. 16 against. They traveled to play Loyola, and 10,000 packed the small stadium to watch the two teams battle their second consecutive scoreless game. It must have been a very defense-oriented season in California football. The Grey Fog did run up the score, 28-0 against Gonzaga. Perhaps Gonzaga didn’t get the message that tough defense was expected this season. The season ended with a 7-3 loss to Santa Clara in front of 45,000 at Kezar.

      The 1935 season was the first winning season since 1930 at 5-3, only losing to tough local teams, including Stanford, in front of large crowds. They added Denver and Fresno to their schedule, dropping any non-collegiate teams while continuing to play Nevada and their Catholic rivals.

      In 1936, the Grey Fogs returned to mediocrity. They traveled to San Antonio to tie Texas’ St. Mary’s 6-6 and later tying California’s St. Mary’s in another defensive standoff, 0-0 in front of 35,000 fans who hopefully enjoyed watching defensive play or maybe the school bands. USF added Montana, Portland, and San Jose to their schedule, going 4-4-2.

     They opened the 1937 season hosting two Texas teams, St. Mary’s, with 20,000 attending, and tiny Daniel Baker, a college that eventually went bankrupt. That game only drew 2500 to the same Kezar stands. Huge crowds attended the St. Mary’s and Santa Clara games; 55,000 crammed Kezar to watch the Gaels-Dons game. It was another so-so 4-5-1 season, though they added Texas A and M and Michigan State to their schedule.

            Back to the winning column in 1938, at 5-2-1, but losing to their local rivals back-to-back. All their first six games were all in San Francisco at either Kezar or Seals Stadiums. They won both their road trip games against Fresno and Gonzaga. They hosted another Texas team, Harden-Simmons. They played my Gauchos at Kezar for the first time, beating what was then Santa Barbara State 14-0.

            Things began to slip again as the nation moved toward WWII, with a 4-3-3 1939 record. Ties were common, including a rousing 0-0 tie in La Playa Stadium, Santa Barbara, where I played 27 years later. They also tied Santa Clara when the Broncos were ranked 14^th nationally. They added a Missouri Valley Conference team, Creighton, to their schedule. Seems like out-of-state teams jumped at a chance to travel to San Francisco for a game. Good for recruiting.

            Nineteen-forty was a sad year. Their only win came against Loyola, but they managed another 0-0 tie with Creighton and lost a very close game against number eighteen Texas Tech in early December at Kezar.

            A new coach took over in 1941, and things improved. They went 6-4 and were the third-best team among the Western Independents behind Hawaii and Santa Clara. They began to score offensively and avoided those 0-0 ties. This season they played a military team for the first time in years, Fort Ord. Their last game was a loss to Mississippi State at Kezar on December 6^th, as Yamamoto’s forces advanced on Pearl Harbor.

            In nineteen-forty-two, they continued playing during wartime, adding two military teams to their schedule. They lost to all three California Catholic colleges and to number sixteen Mississippi State but crushed Arizona State 54-6. The Dons ranked third among Western Independents behind number seventeen Santa Clara and St. Mary’s. They were again under another first-year head coach.

            The war was going full blast on either side of two oceans, but football continued at USF in 1943, probably using young players and those ineligible for the draft or not yet drafted. Two linemen might have been 4-F due to their size, 250 and 315-pounders. Perhaps the Army didn’t make uniforms big enough. They only scored thirteen points the whole season, six in their sole win against Nevada, who could only field twenty-one players. They played the Cal Bears in Memorial Stadium in a boring game that included a single Bear’s pass completion in the last play of the game. Though 10,000 attended the game, for that big stadium, it was considered poor attendance. To have the half-time card show required recruiting spectators to join the student section, including USF fans. USF lost to number eight USC in front of a small crowd at Kezar and to number fifteen ranked Del Monte Pre-flight, both by 34-0 scores.

     Del Monte Pre-flight’s team included former college players, ex-pros, and an All-American. They ended the season ranked as the eighth-best team in the nation, beating UCLA, Cal, and St. Mary’s. Their only loss was to Pacific. USF was outscored that season 199-13, finishing an embarrassing 1-7. But there were more important contests on the minds of most Californians. Football at USF was suspended during the remaining years of the war.

            Football returned to San Francisco in 1946 under another new coach, again playing all collegiate teams. They went 3-6, beating Kansas State and losing in a close game to St. Mary’s in front of 50,000.

            Nineteen-forty-seven, the year of my birth, things began to look up again. With another new coach, the team went 7-3, playing six out-of-state teams and beating both St. Mary’s and Santa Clara in high-scoring contests.

            Another new coach was on the scene in 1948, Notre Dame football star, Joe Kuharich. His first season was not impressive. They went 2-7, but the next season showed what the new coach could do. In 1949, they went 7-2, outscoring opponents 260-144. The team traveled to play Tulsa in Oklahoma. They had along two African American players, who weren’t allowed to stay in the hotel with the team. Two of the white players went along with them to a hotel where they accepted Blacks, and when restaurants refused to seat their Black teammates, the team kept going until they found one that would. Ollie Matson, a star Negro running back, suffered from sideline slurs, black eyes, and a bloody nose from cheap shots, and had three touchdowns called back. The USF players were beginning to learn about life in Jim Crow Land, losing 10-0.

            With the dawning of the 1950s, Kuharich opened the season with a home game against Tulsa. This time, the Golden Hurricanes were on the Dons’ home turf. Matson got some satisfaction for the way he was treated in Oklahoma by scoring two touchdowns in the USF 23-14 win over Tulsa. It would be Tulsa’s only loss. They went on to win the Missouri Valley Conference and rank eighteenth in the nation. The Dons went 7-4 and ranked third, again, among Western Independents. Their only losses came against seventh-ranked Stanford, fourth-ranked Cal, twentieth-ranked Loyola, and 8-1 Fordham, all away games.

            The next year looked promising as the team gathered in Corning for pre-season double-day practices. Coach Kuharich focused on football strategy and skills but had relied on his assistant, Brad Lynn, for recruiting. Lynn obtained two of his best players, both African Americans, at San Francisco City College. Ollie Matson, a Washington High grad, played running back for the SF Community College Rams prior to joining the nearby USF squad. His mother had moved to San Francisco from Texas when he was fourteen, hoping he would eventually study dentistry.

      Burl Toler never played high school football. While walking the hallway at SFCC, a student asked him, “Aren’t you late for practice?” He was big and looked like he could be a football player, so he decided to go out for the team, eventually becoming USF’s team captain and star lineman and linebacker. They played both ways back then.

      Bob St. Clair was 5’9” and 160 pounds as a freshman at SF Poly High School and lived very close to USF and Kezar Stadium. By 1951, he was 6’7” and 235, as a college junior playing tackle.

     Gino Marchetti was the son of Italian immigrants living in working class Antioch, CA. He dropped out of high school and joined the Army where they promised him a high school diploma, and became a machine gunner in the Battle of the Bulge. He returned after the war to work in a bar and attend Modesto Junior College. He previously had started a club team in Antioch with friends to play local clubs because he missed the game. He was recruited to play for Modesto as an afterthought because the coach was more interested in his brother. Marchetti was about 6’5” and only weighed 215 playing tackle, but he had desire and earned a starting position with Modesto. While Gino worked in his brother’s bar, Brad Lynn showed up and ordered a beer, asking for Gino Marchetti. Marchetti had long hair and was smoking a cigarette. The coach wanted to offer Marchetti a scholarship to play for the Dons. Marchetti snuffed out his cigarette and said, “I’m Gino Marchetti.” He agreed to no drinking, no smoking, and cutting his hair and joined the Dons and his army friend, Burl Toler, to play for three seasons.

     Another lineman on that team was Red Stephens, one of four players drafted into the pros after the ‘51 season. He finished his pro career and was an assistant coach for Notre Dame and a pro scout for Philadelphia. A fifth player, running back Scooter Scudero, from Mission High School, starred for the undefeated 1949 Dons’ frosh team. He scored nine touchdowns his sophomore year, but at 5’1” was tiny for a major college football program. He also played defensive back and ran back punts. His junior year he had the misfortune of playing behind Ollie Matson, though he contributed on defense and special teams. Because the team folded after 1951, he was unable to play his senior year because transferring to another school made him ineligible. He went on to play one year for the Canadian Football League, making all-star and spent six years with the NFL, making the pro-bowl in 1955. He was an outstanding punt and kick returner. Both Scudero and Stephens played for the Redskins, a team Kuharich coached.

      St. Clair transferred to Tulsa his senior year because they were willing to avoid eligibility rules so he could play one more season. They went on to an 8-2-1 season and a Gator Bowl appearance. When the team got the bid to play in the bowl game, St. Clair was the only player to vote against going. He wanted to fulfill a childhood dream and play in a college all-star game at Kezar the same weekend in his hometown. Nobody knew he was the one to vote against going to Jacksonville to play in the Gator Bowl. He was drafted to play in Kezar for the 49ers. He had kept growing and ended up at 6’9” and 263 pounds. He stayed with the 49ers for ten years, earning first-team all-pro five times and second-team all-pro four, played in five pro bowls and was declared a member of the NFL1950 Decade Team. He was elected as mayor of Daly City, where he owned a liquor store, and also served as San Mateo County Supervisor.

     Ed Brown quarterbacked the 1951 team. A graduate of San Luis Obispo High School (my son played ninth-grade ball for the Tigers when I was on sabbatical in 1985-86 at Cal Poly, SLO), he transferred from Hartnell Junior College to USF to lead the team’s offense. After college he was drafted by the Chicago Bears, but also drafted into the Marines, where he spent two years playing for Camp Pendleton’s team. Brown played for the Bears and Steelers and finished in 1965 as a punter for the Baltimore Colts, making the Pro Bowl twice.

     Dick Stanfel just missed playing for the ’51 Dons, graduating in 1951, but was a teammate for those players who still had eligibility for the famous season. Stanfel attended high school at San Francisco’s Commerce HS, where my grandfather was once a vice principal. He attended San Francisco City College, spent a year and a half in the Army, and joined the Dons, playing for Kuharich in 1948, ‘49, and ‘50. He was selected to play in the East-West Shrine Bowl, was All-Coast, and drafted by the Detroit Lions as an offensive guard. He played pros for seven years, making All-pro five times and playing in five pro-bowl games and for two NFL championships. He joined his USF teammates as a member of the 1950’s Decade Team. Following his playing years, he coached for thirty-five years for Notre Dame, Cal, and a series of pro teams, deemed by Mike Ditka “the best line coach in football.” After his death, he joined three Dons teammates in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

     What about the two African American players? Ollie Matson led the nation in rushing in 1951, was an All-American, and came in 9^th  in the Heisman ballots. He was drafted in the first round by the Chicago Cardinals in 1952 and played pros for various teams until 1966, earning all-pro honors seven times, playing in six pro bowls, and joining his teammates on the 1950’s Decade Team and the Pro Hall of Fame. He also ran track in the 1952 Olympic Games, taking bronze in the 400 and silver as a member of the 4X400 relay, and is in the College Football Hall of Fame. Sadly, his fourteen years of pro ball took a toll on his health, and his many concussions are believed to have contributed to his death from conditions related to dementia in 2011.

      His African American teammate, Burl Toler, had a different football career outcome. He grew up in Memphis but didn’t decide to play football until his senior high school year. A serious burn on his arm in a kitchen accident prevented his playing, so he acted as water boy. After briefly attending a local college, his uncle encouraged him to come to San Francisco, where he joined Matson on the “Mythical Junior College National Champion” SFCC team. He was considered by some as the Dons’ best player at linebacker and offensive lineman on the 1951 team, and that is saying a lot. He was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1952 but injured his knee in a college all-star game that ended his pro playing career before it even started, but not his pro career as an official. He became the first NFL Black official in 1968 while teaching junior high with a master’s degree from USF. He broke more Civil Rights ground by becoming the first African American junior high principal in San Francisco at Benjamin Franklin Junior High, later renamed Burl Toler Middle School. USF has a dorm named in his honor and he is a member of the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. He died in 2009.

The results of the 9-0 season victories are the following:

San Jose State 39-2

Idaho 28-7

Camp Pendleton 26-0

San Jose State again 42-7

Fordham 32-26

San Diego Navy 26-7

Santa Clara 26-7

Pacific 47-14

Loyola 20-2

     Some claimed this was a weak schedule compared to the South Eastern teams that made bowl games, but the team was so strong that top-flight teams, like Cal, refused to schedule the small Catholic college out of fear. St. Mary’s team folded due to financial debt after the 1950 season, perhaps a precursor for what happened to USF, so they had to scramble to get opponents.

      Pitching for a bowl bid, Pete Rozelle traveled to New York City for the Fordham game and convinced the famous sports writer Grantland Rice to attend the game. Matson fumbled the kick-off, and Rozelle turned to see Rice shaking his head before Matson picked up the ball and ran 94 yards for the score. Matson led the nation with 21 TD’s 1,566 rushing yards and played both ways. Rice must have been impressed as the Dons beat the previously unbeaten Rams.

     Nineteen-fifty-one did not end football at USF. After five years without football, “Sarge” Mac Kenzie, remembering the great years, convinced the university to allow an intramural tackle football program in 1956. Presumably, they still had equipment stored away. The three-team intramural league was unique for West Coast college football. (When I coached with the Department of Defense Schools in Panama in the 1990s, our new district superintendent ended the long practice of allowing our community college students to play in the interscholastic league. The new college dean had been a football coach and created a three-team intramural tackle league to allow Panama Canal College to continue tackle football. Some alumni took a class or two just to qualify to join a team. It grew from six-man football to a program that included Panamanian university football teams.) 

     The following year Mac Kenzie formed a team from the intramural squads to play San Francisco State’s Reserves. In 1958, after round robin competition between the Grey Fog, Caballeros, and Vigilantes (keeping San Francisco history in mind) Mac Kenzie’s All-Stars played Treasure Island’s military team, beating them 18-15, Cal Davis Aggies JV, winning 14-8, but losing to the SFSU Gators Reserves 30-6 and 42-22.

      Intramurals continued in 1959, along with games against Treasure Island and Santa Clara, reviving a long rivalry. It wasn’t big time, but it was football, and as one supporter said, “They played the game just because they liked it.” (This should be the theme of the club football league I am dreaming about: playing the game for the fun of it.)

     They added a five-game schedule in 1960, losing to Davis, SFSU, and the top service team, Hamilton Field. They played San Benito’s Hollister Junior College (now Gavilan College) twice, splitting wins and losses. It looked like USF was slowly returning to college football.

     In 1961, they had a winning season, going 4-2 against local junior colleges and Hamilton Field. The next year, they played local junior colleges and college JVs, plus a small Christian college varsity from Southern California, LA Pacific (this school later merged with Azusa College to become Azusa-Pacific, where I got my first masters. They were the last Division II NCAA football team left in the state until the program was canceled in 2020.). The Dons went 3-3 winning their last game against LA Pacific.

     The 1963 season included seven games. They beat Gavilan JC and LA Pacific but lost to Claremont College, Cal Lutheran, Cal Davis, Moffett Field, and Napa JC. But they were beginning to build a more challenging schedule.

     They had a 6-2 season in 1964, finally beating SF State’s JV, and beating Humboldt State’s JV, Cal Davis’s JV, Moffett Field twice, and Hayward State (now CSU East Bay, where I earned a masters in anthropology after retirement so I could teach college anthro.). They lost to Claremont College and the University of British Columbia. No JCs on this schedule.

     The 1965 season featured three wins against Moffett Field, George Fox of Oregon, and a 2-0 win on a muddy field over Eastern Oregon. Losses were to Chico, Nevada, Claremont, Western Oregon, and Cal State Hayward.

     Nineteen-sixty-six was an all-varsity season. They won their first three games against Chico, Claremont, and UC Riverside, lost to Sacramento State, Nevada, Azusa-Pacific, Cal Lutheran, and Westminster College of Pennsylvania, but finished up with a win against Hayward, going 4-5. It was a respectable first all-varsity season against colleges with established teams.

     The ’67 season moved them into the winning column, at 5-4, returning to the previous rivalry with Loyola. Sixty-eight was a disaster. Only nineteen players finished the season. They tied one game and lost eight. Things improved slightly in ’69 with a 3-6 mark. They beat Riverside, Eastern Oregon, and their old-time local rival, St. Mary’s, which was just coming back to football again as a club. Nineteen-seventy was all downhill, with their only claim to dignity a close game with Sonoma State that was an almost comeback. The following season was also a bummer. The students complained the football team got no support from the administration and was required to field a varsity program by supporting itself financially. Gate receipts were nowhere near what they had been in the glory years, with Kesar remaining largely empty from the pictures I could find. It was really hard to find records for the post-1951 years, and the Fog Horn school paper archives were my only source. The Sonoma State Cossacks beat the Dons and, like them, were on the way toward extinction blamed on finances. The old Grey Fogs’ last game for a decade was a 47-0 loss to Sacramento State. The Dons were only able to complete the season because a kind philanthropist donated the funds.

     But like a phoenix rising from the fires, Dons football was back in 1981 after resting uncomfortably in the grave for a decade. Coach Jim Clackczak led the team. They didn’t win a game in seven outings against varsity programs and Cal’s JVs, but they scored their first touchdown in ten years and broke a record of sorts when a confused Dons kickoff returner allowed Eastern Oregon to recover a fifty-yard onside kick. Sonoma had also revived their program in 1980 and it outlasted the hapless Dons, who folded again. Sonoma again blamed budget restraints when they canceled their program for a second time in 1996.

      So, the Dons football fans now have to cheer for Cal, Stanford, or the Niners. Even the Raiders have abandoned us. The same with Menlo, CSU East Bay, CSU Sonoma, San Francisco State, St. Mary’s, Santa Clara, Chico, Humboldt, and Pacific. Just think how many California football players and fans could enjoy weekend games if those Northern California schools sponsored self-supporting college football club teams, avoiding NCAA rules, expensive scholarships, travel, and highly paid coaches. As was stated when “Sarge” Mac Kenzie restarted football at SFU, “Football just for the fun of it.” As one student in the Fog Horn paper put it when the team folded the last time: “A school without athletics is not really a school; it is only a business that teaches.”