Born in Syracuse, as a kid I lived and died Syracuse football. A dream came true on 1959 when the Orangemen went all the way to win the national crown.
Curiosity, it was, last Friday night. Watching Syracuse play, that is. It’s not something I do much these days. But last Friday night I was drawn to the renewal of an old, Eastern rivalry, SU v. Pitt. Pitt won, 27-20, and the loss put SU at 3-4 on the year.
But 60 years ago—in 1959, to be specific—it was a different story. SU was my favorite team. College football was my favorite sport. Syracuse beat Pitt 35-0 that year. An undefeated season, a Cotton Bowl win, and a national championship followed.
Courtesy: NCAA
It was more difficult being a fan in those days. Your favorite team didn’t play every week on TV (the NCAA prohibited it), and there weren’t many bowl games to celebrate a good season, either. You followed teams mostly through newspaper accounts and college football books, which I read from cover to cover, like the one to the right.
As the 1959 season was about to begin, I wondered how SU would do. Syracuse had finished the ’58 season in the nation’s top ten, but never challenged for the national crown—beaten, as the Orangemen were, by Holy Cross in the season’s second game.
‘Holy Cross!’ Back then, The Cross was part of the so-called “The Big 11” in Eastern football (see footnote). The Crusaders had success in 1958 (6-3) even with a rough schedule that included Syracuse, Pitt, Boston College, and Penn State.
In 1958, SU won every game before and after HC, until the Orange met Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. OU won easily 21-6.
Ben Schwartzwalder was the head coach back then, known nationally because he had been Jimmy Brown’s head coach. An incredible athlete, Brown’s finished his career in the 1957 season before going on to star with the Cleveland Browns.
Ernie Davis (photo, African American Heritage)
Schwartzwalder looked to reload and reload he did, with another soon-to-be-famous running back, a player named Ernie Davis. Davis began playing for the Orange varsity in 1959, and he had a hell of career at Syracuse, winning the Heisman Trophy in 1961. The Carrier Dome field, where SU plays today, carries Davis’ name.
Schwedes (left) and Sarette (photo, WorthPoint)
Ben had another star player, an interesting player, too, from Germany, named Ger Schwedes. Schwedes was SU’s wingback behind an unbalanced line. Schwedes passed and ran, but in each of his three years on the varsity, he had more running than passing yards. 1959 would be his best passing year at 560 yards—paltry by today’s standards—and sophomore Dave Sarette, who played quarterback, didn’t pass much either (760 total yards).
I was surprised to see that SU was unranked going into the 1959 season. Beating Kansas by 14 points in the opener changed that, but just barely. The Orangemen were voted #20 (there wasn’t a Top 25 in those days). But it didn’t take long for SU to move up in the polls.
With solid offense and formidable defense—coupled with a play that teams had trouble defending (even understanding, in some cases), called ‘the scissors play,’ Syracuse beat teams soundly. After Kansas, SU won five straight games (three by shutout) and only gave up 12 total points during that five-game string, which the Orangemen won by an average score of 36-3.
Stats from SU v. PSU, 1959 (courtesy. Football Study Hall)
The challenge got tougher when Syracuse went on the road to play #4 Penn State at State College. SU prevailed by two points, and that win changed the 1959 college football landscape. SU leaped to #1 the polls. The next two games came against weaker regional foes (Colgate and Boston U), and that helped keep SU #1 as the Orangeman notched two blowout wins.
Syracuse was undefeated going into the final and biggest game of the season–a nationally televised, West Coast match-up against UCLA. The Bruins were on a four-game winning streak, and the scuttlebutt was that SU—like most Eastern teams—wouldn’t travel well. But on that day in Los Angeles, Syracuse wasn’t one of those teams. The Orangemen outclassed the Bruins, 36-8.
That win set up a national championship clash in the Cotton Bowl with #4-ranked powerhouse, Texas. SU prevailed 23-14. But the thing I remember most about that game (other than Davis’ early TD jaunt) was a brawl, which was prompted by what SU’s black players had to endure from the all-white Longhorns.
LIFE—one of the leading magazines of the day—described it this way: “Once when he was plowing through the line, said Negro fullback Art Baker, “one of them spit right in my face.” John Brown, a Negro lineman, played nose to nose against 235-pound Texas tackle Larry Stephens. To goad him off balance, Brown claimed, Stephens kept calling him “a big black dirty nigger.” Finally, Brown warned him not to call him that again. When Stephens did, Brown swung.”
Schwartzwalder stayed as head coach until 1973, winning almost two of every three games–153 wins over his 25-year SU career. Syracuse went 2-9 the year after he left, and has only dabbled with gridiron success over the past 40 years. SU’s big year came in 1987 when the team was undefeated under Dick McPherson. But national prominence has eluded the Orange, especially since Paul Pasqualoni left Central NY after the 2004 season.
I don’t follow SU football these days, but seeing them play last Friday night brought back memories. Memories of my youth, and memories of a very different era of SU football—when Syracuse was the best team in college football.
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*The Eastern ‘Big Eleven’ included Army, Boston College, Boston University, Colgate, Holy Cross, Navy, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, and Villanova. West Virginia played four Big Eleven teams in 1959 but competed in the Southern Conference.
