San Francisco Dons Football | bdusf's Blog

I just read about the destruction of the San Francisco Dons Football team some 57 years ago because of the bigget nature of the Southeast. The famous story of how an undefeated team that should have played for a natural chapionship instead stayed home to stand up for the African American players on the team. For more on this story, refer to the links below and the copy and paste from wikipedia. In my belief it is time to make up for this shameful behavior and start another team at the University of San Francisco. The town deserves it and its a great time to have a unifying project that would help stimulate job growth.

Compared to local rivals Santa Clara and Saint Mary's, USF's football teams were historically not as strong. However, the 1951 Dons entered college football lore by fielding a team that would go undefeated and produce three NFL hall of famers (Gino Marchetti, Ollie Matson, and Bob St. Clair). However, they did not receive any bowl invitations, as the team turned down any suggestions that they leave their two black teammates at home at the expense of a much-needed bowl bid. Due to the associated financial burden on the school that a bowl bid would have alleviated, USF's finest football team ever was to be its last in Division I. Though football made a brief comeback as a Division II sport during the 1960s and 1970s, USF has not fielded a varsity team since.

Kuharich was an indifferent recruiter who largely delegated that responsibility to his freshman coach, Brad Lynn. Lynn had little to offer prospective players in the way of scholarship inducements beyond tuition and room and board in an old ROTC barracks. However, Lynn would take recruits to the highest hill on campus, and would gesture out towards the sweeping panorama of San Francisco saying, "THIS is your campus." Only a handful of players from that 1951 team had been considered blue-ribbon prospects in high school. Two of the team's best players, Toler and guard Louis (Red) Stephens, had not even played high school football. Future Hall of Famer Marchetti was a high school dropout who had played only sparingly when he was in school.

The 1951 Dons were honored during the 2008 Fiesta Bowl.

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April 24, 2009 09:04 PM ET

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The Dons were undefeated in 1951, the last year they played intercollegiate football. The best game the team played was in 1950, against Cal (Berkeley), in November, in the rain. Cal All American linebacker, Les Richter, was the best college player in the country. The Dons linebacker, Burl Toler, played the Bears to a standstill, the Dons losing 14-13, as I recall. When the class graduated in 1952, Burl was chosen as the most valuable player in all sports in the class. The Dons basketball team won the NIT in 1949. The Dons soccer team was a NCAA finalist under the direction of Gus Donohue, an All American player from Scotland in his playing days, and probably the best soccer coach in the country at the time. Additionally, he was a superb teacher--English History at USF. Art Larsen was the star on the Dons tennis team, winning the singles championship in l948-49. The only team that was subpar during this period of time from 1949-1952, was varsity baseball. Even though Con Dempsey, a major league pitcher and Billy Cunningham, who played against Babe Ruth in the World Series in the early 1920's were helping with the baseball team, the head coach was Pete Newell, the legendary basketball coach who was also head coach of the baseball team. Pete was always involved with the basketball team late into spring and since the baseball and basketball seasons ovelapped was not able to spend much time with the baseball team. Nevertheless, from l949 to l952, the Dons were golden on the playing fields and floors, and the Green and Gold Dons are fondly remembered by those of us who were eye witnesses.