The Indomitable 1951 Football Dons

By Ryan Callan, USF '01

It's a team somewhat forgotten in history, never mentioned among the great teams of Notre Dame, USC, or Oklahoma. But it's possible that there never was a greater college football team than the University of San Francisco Dons of 1951.

Nine players including seven of the graduating seniors that year went on to the NFL. The nine players are Gino Marchetti, Ollie Matson, Ed Brown, Ralph Thomas, Merrill Peacock, Louis Stephens, Mike Mergen, Bob St.Clair, and Joe Scudero. Five of those nine players were selected during their professional careers to play in the Pro Bowl. Three of those five players, Marchetti, Matson, and St.Clair have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the most ever from a single college team. Two of the three inductees were inducted in the same year-1972, their first year of eligibility-to become the only college teammates honored in such a way. Additionally, members of the Hall of Fame Selection Committee selected Bob St.Clair, Gino Marchetti, Ollie Matson, and Dick Stanfel of the 1950 Dons football team to CBS.SportsLine.com's 1950's All-Decade Team.

These feats are even more impressive considering the fact that at that time there were only 12 NFL teams with only 30 players to a team. Now, there are 31 teams with nearly 50 players to a team. That's not all. One player, Burl Toler, who was perhaps the best of them all, suffered a career ending injury while participating in the 1952 College All-Star Game. However, Toler, still has spent the last 35 years working for the NFL, including the first 25 of those as the league's first black official.

Another individual associated with that team who went on to make a name for himself following his days at USF was a man named Pete Rozelle. Rozelle's job as "athletic-news director" was to publicize the football team. During the 1951 season, Rozelle attempted to make Matson's football exploits known to the national press. For example, when the team was supposed to play Fordham on October 20th that year, Rozelle spent the week leading up to the game in New York trying to convince the local sportswriters such as the legendary Grantland Rice that Matson and the Dons were an extremely talented team worthy of media coverage. Rozelle even drove Rice, who was then writing a widely syndicated newspaper column to the game. Rozelle was worried that the team wouldn't be as sharp as usual after its 18-hour flight from San Francisco.

To Rozelle's dismay, Matson dropped the opening kickoff, but Matson recovered the ball on the six-yard line and returned it 94 yards for a touchdown. Matson scored three touchdowns and gained 302 yards that day on the ground and on kick returns in the Dons 32-26 victory. Matson, who also contributed with solid defense that year, led the nation with 1,566 yards and 21 touchdowns that season. Strangely, he was named an All-American as a defensive back in Rice's Look Magazine in spite of his stellar offensive statistics. Matson only finished 9th in the Heisman Trophy balloting in 1951 in spite of his prolific offensive season. These two oversights are probably attributable to the apparent racism of the time.

Following his USF career, Matson won two medals for the United States in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki. He won a bronze in the 440-meter race and a silver in the 1600 meter relay. Matson was also a first round selection of the Chicago Cardinals in that year's NFL draft. After his first season, he shared Rookie-of-the-Year honors with Hugh McElhenny of the 49ers. After his superb rookie season, Matson was forced to miss the 1953 season in favor of U.S. Army service. In his 14-season career, Matson rushed for 5,173 yards, caught 222 passes, and scored 73 touchdowns.

His individual success never really translated into any team success for Matson because in his entire career his teams only finished above .500 twice. For his career, he gained a total of 12,884 yards on rushing, receiving, and returning kicks despite being on less than stellar teams. He played in the Pro Bowl after his first five seasons, and he was selected as an All-Pro for four consecutive seasons. Amazingly, in a 1959 trade engineered by Pete Rozelle, then the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, Matson was traded from the Cardinals to the Rams for nine players.

In 1960, Rozelle was named commissioner of the NFL, a position he would hold for 29 years. During his tenure, he oversaw the merger of the AFL and NFL, the creation of the Super Bowl, Monday Night Football, and highly profitable television deals. After only his third year as NFL commissioner, Pete Rozelle was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year for 1963. While he was still working as commissioner of the NFL, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. As NFL commissioner, the final and most profitable television contracts that he arranged lasted three years from 1987-1989. The contracts that he coordinated with ABC, NBC, and CBS netted $1.428 billion for the NFL.

In a recent fan poll, sportingnews.com and yahoo.com users selected Pete Rozelle as the century's fourth most powerful person in sports behind Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, and Muhammad Ali respectively. In 1996, Rozelle died at the age of 70 from brain cancer in Rancho Santa Fe, California. He remained forever loyal to USF and contributed Super Bowl tickets to USF's Green & Gold Club drawing every year.

The head coach of the gridiron Dons in those years was a real disciplinarian named Joe Kuharich, a former star football player at Notre Dame in the 1930s. Preseason camps were rough under Kuharich. "Running and calisthenics would have you on a knee before practice started," said Bill Henneberry, Executive Director of Athletic Development and a backup quarterback on the team. "We referred to ourselves as the "Kuharich Survivors." Henneberry further described the intensity of preseason practice; "We were in Corning, California in 1950, where it was 108 degrees. Players sought refuge in the shadows created by the poles on the field. He also put oatmeal in the water because he didn't want the players to swallow it [the water]."

Henneberry, who coached high school football for many years, said that he and most of his teammates who went into coaching stressed many of the lessons and fundamentals they had learned under Kuharich. "I incorporated the importance of players being in extraordinary physical condition, in addition to, emphasizing tackling, blocking, and attention to detail," said Henneberry. "Kuharich also never said anything worse than hell or damn, so I tried to emulate that as well."

The Dons would look out for each other for the remainder of their subsequently more decorated careers. Kuharich instilled in his players an enduring sense of loyalty both to him and to each other. Kuharich, who would move on to coach three NFL teams typically would have three or more USF alumni in the lineup. When he took a leave of absence from the league in 1959 to coach the Fightin' Irish of Notre Dame, he employed three of his former USF players as assistant coaches-Joe Scudero, Louis Stephens, and Dick Stanfel from the 1950 Dons team.

Many of the Dons players were from the Bay Area, including most of its star players like Marchetti and St.Clair. The team remains a close-knit team today; members of the team spend time together and contact each other through e-mails and telephone calls particularly those who still live locally. The New York Yanks drafted Marchetti, who graduated from high school in Antioch, California in the 2nd round with the 13th overall pick in 1952. Two days after the draft, the Yanks were sold back to the NFL. All players and assets were assigned to the new Dallas Texans. However, after one season the team then moved east to Baltimore to become the Baltimore Colts in 1953.

At the end of the decade, the Colts had become an NFL powerhouse winning back-to-back league championships in 1958 and 1959 under Marchetti who was their defensive leader as a defensive end. In the 1958 NFL championship game, Marchetti's tackle of the Giants' Frank Gifford just short of a first down in the final minutes of perhaps pro football's greatest game allowed the Colts to score a game tying field goal that sent the game into sudden death overtime where his team, the Colts would eventually win.

Unfortunately, Marchetti broke his leg on the play and was forced to watch the remainder of the game from the sidelines. He was forced to miss the Pro Bowl that year because of the injury. Marchetti, who wore numbers 89 and 75 during his career was elected to the Pro Bowl 11 straight seasons and was honored as an All-Pro eight times from 1957-1964. In addition to his induction into the NFL Hall of Fame, he was named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary team in 1994. Marchetti also was a partner with a few of his Colts teammates in a very successful fast-food chain restaurant called Gino's.

Fellow Bay Area universities Cal and Stanford who were football powerhouses at the time wanted no part of the Dons that historical 1951 season even though the two schools had defeated USF the previous season. Cal had played USF in a televised game in 1950 at Cal in the middle of a tremendous rainstorm. The rain decimated the field, and the Dons, who were without Matson for most of the game due to an injury lost to Cal 13-7. Cal, which boasted a number of All-American type players that year went on to an undefeated season and its third straight Rose Bowl appearance under legendary coach Pappy Waldorf. In the loss to Stanford in 1950, Burl Toler did not play due to injury. Furthermore, USC chose not to play USF that season in spite of an opening in their schedule. Nevertheless, the team defeated the likes of Idaho and San Jose State twice, and USF steamrolled through quality opponents such as Santa Clara 26-7 and Pacific 47-14 en route to its first and only unblemished football season in school history at 9-0. The '51 Dons beat their opponents by an average score of 33-8.

After the team won their last game of the season 20-2 over Loyola at the Rose Bowl, the team boarded a train headed for San Francisco. The team was in a celebratory mood after finishing off an undefeated season with the victory over Loyola, and they were excited about the opportunity to play in a bowl game. "We drank the train out of beer," said Henneberry. "We got off the train [in San Francisco] and found out we weren't going [to a bowl]."

The announced reason for rejecting USF was its weak schedule, but San Francisco sportscaster Ira Blue reported that he was told by Gator Bowl president Sam Wolfson that the Gator, Sugar, and Orange Bowl committees had all decided to avoid teams with "Negro" players. There was also an insinuation that had the Dons been willing to play without Matson and Toler, they might have been granted a bid. Without hesitation, the players decided they would never play in a bowl game or otherwise without Matson and Toler. Ironically, Pacific, which USF had trounced in Stockton, went to the Sun Bowl.

The school needed the financial reward a trip to a bowl game would reap, in order for the football program to be sustained. The sport was costing the University nearly $70,000 a year, a deficit the school couldn't endure any longer. On December 30, 1951, the Reverend William J. Dunne, S.J., then USF's president, announced that the school would no longer field a football team because of the financial burden. The school's best football team was to be its last Division I team. The school brought back football in 1965 as a Division II sport, but it was dropped again for good following the 1971 season.

After the school dropped football following the 1951 season, Bob St.Clair elected to transfer to the University of Tulsa to complete his fourth and final year of eligibility. While at the University of Tulsa, he earned All-Missouri Valley Conference honors and played in the Gator Bowl. Subsequently, he was drafted in the 3rd round as the 32nd overall pick by the San Francisco 49ers. St.Clair was coming home. St.Clair played his entire 10-year career with the 49ers from 1953-1963. St.Clair was a starter in five Pro Bowls, and he was an All-Pro three times. In addition, he served as 49ers team captain during his career. The native of San Francisco who graduated from the now extinct Polytechnic High School in San Francisco wore number 79 with the 49ers. Eventually, he would become the only native San Franciscan on the 49ers squad. He played primarily as an offensive tackle, but he also played goal line defense and was outstanding on special teams.

In 1956, he blocked 10 field goals. St.Clair is a mammoth of a man, he stands 6-9 and weighs 263 pounds. Ironically, St.Clair had the most difficulty matching up against opponent Gino Marchetti. However, St.Clair looked forward to competing against his former college teammate. St.Clair was nicknamed "The Geek" by 49ers teammate Bruno Banducci because he ate his meat raw. He ate steak, fish, and even chicken raw. Furthermore, he served as a councilman and then as mayor of Daly City, California, even while he was still playing.

In St.Clair's last season, 1963, he also won the highest 49ers' honor, the Len Eshmont Award given to the team's most inspirational player selected by the players on the team. St.Clair missed most of the previous season due to an Achilles tendon tear, but he bounced back the next season and was honored as an All-Pro. Unfortunately, St.Clair's career ended after he injured the Achilles tendon on his other ankle during the 1964 training season. When St.Clair first decided that he wanted to play football as a sophomore in high school, the school's coach Joe Verducci told him that he was too small to play football. At the time, St.Clair was only 5-9 and 150 pounds. He was determined to make the team, and he reported to an amazed Verducci at 6-4 and 210 pounds. Because of his persistence to strengthen his body, he made the team.

This year the City of San Francisco has elected to name the field at Kezar Stadium where St.Clair played for Poly, USF, and the 49ers "Bob St.Clair Field." There has been a push to have the 1951 team be recognized for its achievements as recently reported in the Marin Independent Journal. Kris Clark of Novato, California has written a book about the 1951 USF football team titled, "Undefeated, Untied, Uninvited."

She first learned about the '51 team four years ago when she found a videotape left anonymously on her desk at USF, where she was working on her doctorate in education. That night, Clark and her husband, Bill, watched the videotape done by NFL Films about the '51 Dons. The Clarks decided to do something. Kris Clark was so touched that, with the support of USF's director of athletic development Bill Henneberry, she traveled coast to coast interviewing more than a dozen team members.

The more that Clark spoke with them, the more she realized the disappointment they felt at the end of their magnificent season. Kris started contacting her local elected officials like Senator Barbara Boxer. In a June 22nd, 2000 letter, Boxer asked former President Clinton to honor the '51 USF team. On July 27th, 2000, Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in a letter urged Clinton to host the Dons at the White House. That same day, Boxer submitted a resolution in the U.S. Senate that the 1951 team be given a tribute at the White House-it passed unanimously.

On August 18th, 2000, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, also pleaded Clinton to honor the Dons at the White House. The team did not visit the White House before Clinton left office. However, Boxer has also written current President George W. Bush requesting the team be invited to the White House to be honored for its accomplishments. In addition, former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Steve Largent, now a republican representative from Oklahoma likewise has asked Bush for the same favor in a letter dated March 20th of this year. Largent is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the University of Tulsa Hall of Fame.

The White House may honor the team in a ceremony with Bush in June. Would that not be a significant exclamation point to the saga of the magnificent 1951 USF Dons?