Friday Night before Homecoming

by Charles Tirone

The '58 football team is still very close. In fact, quite a few years ago, we established and propagated a tradition.

Brunner's, that tavern on Main St. close to the South Campus, is still there. That was a favorite watering hole for UB students.

Jack Dempsey lives around here. He and Ben Verrico decided to have a reunion, so they called everybody up. They convinced them to come and meet at Brunner's on the Friday night before Homecoming. This is a lot of years ago.

It caught on. We have about 100 people come to Brunner's now. Not just football, but other people from our era. Other teams, other guys who knew of it would show up - the basketball players started coming.

Brunner's is a typical bar. You go in there, and it smells of beer and smoke, and you know, our wives come once in a while, but they can't stand it.

I always try and drop in, even if I can't stay that long, because I want to see who's new. You see new faces from the past.

You know how those things wax and wane. Not everybody will come from out of town every year. But when they do come up for Homecoming for some reason or another - maybe they have children who are going - it's very good.