They Had These Big Beards

by Fred Kogut

I always come back for Homecoming to see my friends. The fact that we had the 1958 Lambert Cup championship team, which was very successful, helped us to bond. There was a bond anyway, but that added to it, and it has never weakened. We always come back and enjoy seeing each other.

Chancellor Furnas was a major supporter of the football program in the '50s, probably the real founder of such an excellent program, because he thought it would attract positive attention to the university. He was right.

We played Harvard in 1958, and we beat them in the opening game of the season. There was a "hurricane" that day, and it was a very hard-fought battle. I look at the replays and you know, it was the UB defense that won that game. We just believed that we could win against those bigger schools at that time.

We had a lot of faith in ourselves, and that kind of put us on the map, winning that opening game of the season. We never expected to lose, always expected to win. It was "standard operating procedure." Looking back on it now, maybe it was unrealistic, how we thought. But we were very close. We really like each other, as teammates.

In those days, there was a disparity in age, because there were veterans from Korea and from the military. I was 17, and I had teammates who were 21 and were freshmen because they had been in the military. That was an eye-opener for me.

Actually, it was pretty intimidating for me, because the veterans were so much older. They acted more mature, and they were kinda scary: they had these big beards.

But they became good friends, like older brothers or mentors. And at the same time, they were kids too.