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    University of Nebraska-Omaha Football
    University of Nebraska-Omaha Football
    University of Nebraska-Omaha Football
    Ebook191 pages57 minutes

    University of Nebraska-Omaha Football

    By Darren Ivy

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    About this ebook

    From its inaugural season in 1911 through its final season in 2011, the University of Nebraska-Omaha football team always faced an uphill struggle in terms of resources. The program reached a pinnacle in 1954 with its lone unbeaten season. Many other teams and individuals also found great success, winning conference titles and bowl games and moving onto professional careers. Just because the school no longer offers football, it does not mean that the thousands of men who played for the Mavericks from 1971 to 2011, the Indians from 1939 to 1971, and the Cardinals and the Maroons before should not be remembered and honored for the years they poured their hearts and souls into the Omaha football program.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateOct 19, 2015
    ISBN9781439653999
    University of Nebraska-Omaha Football
    Author

    Darren Ivy

    Author Darren Ivy, with the help of UNO archivist Les Valentine, selected photographs from the UNO archives that capture the spirit of UNO football. Ivy, an award-winning journalist, previously wrote the book Untold Stories, Black Sports Heroes before Integration while also working as a journalist with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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      Book preview

      University of Nebraska-Omaha Football - Darren Ivy

      come.

      INTRODUCTION

      University of Nebraska–Omaha archivist Les Valentine and business manager Beau Malnack organized a reunion of the undefeated 1954 Omaha University football team on April 12, 2014. The attendees watched a video synced with the radio broadcast of the 1954 Tangerine Bowl. Valentine and Malnack were impressed with how many people came out.

      The remaining players, their families (Malnack’s father, Wayne, had been on the 1954 squad), and close to 200 other people attended the special showing at UNO’s Criss Library. Those who were in attendance to watch a replay of arguably the biggest game in the program’s history left with an even greater appreciation of what the undefeated 1954 squad had achieved and what football in general had meant to the school from 1911 to 2010. Omaha World-Herald columnist Erin Grace wrote about her experiences at the event in her Sunday column. She had high praise for all the former players she had met.

      It was really something, the late Rudy Rotella said after seeing the tape at a private showing in 2013, before his death. I was proud to be the captain of the team. Nearly every person who had the opportunity to play for the UNO football team would probably express similar sentiments and look back fondly on their years of collegiate football for OU and, later, UNO. They would probably choose to remember the good times, but media reports throughout the program’s history touched on the underlying financial and school-support issues that the University of Nebraska–Omaha, Municipal University of Omaha, and Omaha University football teams faced.

      Outside of a few seasons, football teams played before relatively small crowds, and the program struggled to stay afloat and be relevant in a state where the Cornhuskers were kings. UNO was a commuter campus for many years, and students had to drive to the campus on the weekends to show their support for the team. In later years, students could walk from their dorms, a few blocks from the stadium.

      Most players participated in football for the love of it, as athletic scholarships were not available until the 1960s. And, even then, they were not as readily available as at other schools. Still, the school captured numerous conference titles, won a couple of bowl games, qualified for the NCAA playoffs multiple times, and produced its fair share of professional players, like Marlin Briscoe, who became the first African American starting quarterback in the NFL. Coaches came to UNO and invested years of their lives into the program, helping mold students into not only great football players, but great people. However, in the end, the high cost of maintaining and growing the football program to a Division I level as an independent school was one of the reasons that the sport was discontinued following the 2010 season.

      At the time of this book’s publication, in 2015, UNO is in its fifth year of not fielding a football team. University officials cite what they call the new economics of athletics, which do not allow for millions of dollars in subsidies to support football, which is not offered conference-wide in the Summit League. The former Al Caniglia Football Field and Track, which seated nearly 10,000 football fans, has been converted to a soccer-only facility of the same name. The old football goalposts have been replaced with soccer goals. Most of the undergraduate students who walk by today do not know what it was like to attend a Maverick football game on a fall Saturday afternoon or evening.

      Many Maverick players from the 2010 team finished out their football careers at other schools, while others chose to drop the sport altogether. A few even made it to the next level. The players moved on following the vote by the University of Nebraska Regents on March 25, 2011, to move forward with joining the Summit League and ending the football and wrestling programs.

      In these post-football days, UNO is pouring the majority of its athletic budget into its Division I programs, with men’s hockey being the main draw. Men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball also will call home the new $75 million UNO Arena, slated to be completed in 2015.

      The thousands of men who played for the Mavericks (1971–2011), Indians (1939–1971), Cardinals, and Maroons should be remembered and honored for the years they poured their hearts and souls into the Omaha football program.

      Football will always be a part of the history of UNO. It is hoped that when people look back years from now in the collections that have been preserved in the school archives, they will appreciate what the game meant to the school and its role in putting Omaha University on the map.

      1

      THE BEGINNING

      With 12,248 full-time students according to the 2014 report to the NCAA, the University of Nebraska–Omaha has come a long way from when the school was housed in one building and barely had enough boys to field a football team.

      Omaha University classes opened on September 14, 1909, in the old Redick Mansion at Twenty-fourth and Pratt Streets, with 29 students. Men’s basketball preceded football by one year as the first sport at the school. Football barely got off the ground in 1911. According to an Omaha World-Herald article, "The team was not organized or any practice held until the last week of September. No regular practice was started until a week later when Andrew Dow of last year’s Omaha High School team was elected captain. The team had no coaching until a week before its clash with Creighton when [Howard S.] Maxwell took charge of the men. Later in the season, Maxwell was assisted at times by ‘Tate’ Matters, F.C. Currens and other former football coaches in the city. At no time during the season, was there more

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