02/18/2015
Lowell Sun
By David Pevear
LOWELL -- Football is probably never coming back to UMass Lowell. But many of the school's former football players are coming back on Feb. 27 to honor UMass Lowell having once played a game dear to present-day Chancellor Marty Meehan's heart.
The football reunion is part of UMass Lowell's wider effort to bond its alumni anew with their alma mater -- a university unrecognizable to most, it having grown and changed many times during the past few years.
Russ Williams, a former offensive guard and captain of the 1992 team, hopes several hundred former football players will be at the Tsongas Center a week from Friday to swap stories and take bows during a UMass Lowell hockey game versus Vermont.
A reunion quickly put together last year attracted 60 or 70 former football players, said Williams, who is helping organize this year's event.
"We all helped pave the way for the university going Division 1 (in all its sports)," said Williams, 43, of Lowell, a retired former vice president at Enterprise Holdings. "Everyone who has played a sport at the university played a role. These things don't happen unless you have athletes make a decision to go there and make an impact."
The football impact on UMass Lowell's story of bold ambition is complicated, however. The administration pulled the plug on football in March 2003 after 23 varsity seasons.
The program's on-field struggles during its latter years as a Division 2 non-scholarship program up against better-supported competition made it an easy prey for the budget ax. The River Hawks won just 19 games over their final nine seasons and had one winning season in their last 11.
"I don't know if football is ever coming back," said Williams. "Would I love to see that? Of course I would. Is it a priority on whether I'll support the university? No, this is all about celebrating the university and all it is doing for the community."
Rob Aylward of Tewksbury, a star quarterback at UMass Lowell in the late 1980s when it was a successful Division 3 program, once beat the drum to resurrect football at the school. That hope died when the school upgraded to Division 1 in all sports, he said.
"There might still be some tension among the guys who were there the last three or four years, right before the program was canceled," said Aylward, 46, a Tewksbury High assistant football coach who works for National Grid. "But we had our fun. We had some great teams. This reunion is just about getting together and seeing each other and telling some old stories and supporting UMass Lowell."
It was a great run
UMass Lowell football enjoyed a 35-4 run from 1988-91 under coach Dennis Scannell, advancing to the NCAA Division 3 Tournament in 1991 with a roster dominated by players from the Merrimack Valley Conference and Middlesex League, proud to be playing for the local college.
"I met a lot of great teammates who are still friends I keep in touch with," said Jim Mogauro, 48, a star running back out of Woburn High who was a UMass Lowell captain in 1989. "And I met a lot of great athletes. A lot of kids I played with at ULowell had been Division 1-AA recruits. It's going to be a great thing to get together for a night and share what we had together."
Mogauro, married with two teenage children and working in the home-theater business, appreciates the university remembering football. "But I donate significantly less to the university than I might if there was still football," he said.
Then-ULowell won two national championships as a club program in the late 1970s under coach John Perreault, success which prompted the program's elevation to varsity status in 1980.
(Football was also played at Lowell Textile/Lowell Tech for all but three seasons from 1905-50, with those teams compiling a 94-178-24 record.)
Lowell's Tipper Durkin, quarterback of the 1977 club team that defeated Duquesne 41-6 in the national title game at Cawley Stadium, has sent out 30 emails to encourage players from his era to come to the reunion on Feb. 27. He wonders what happened to Terry Coleman, a former Lowell High kid who was the star running back on that championship team.
"That's somebody I would love to get in touch with," said Durkin, 59. "People used to tell us it was 'just club football.' But (teammate) Bill Florence and I used to laugh that we still hurt just as much on Sunday mornings whether or not it was club."
Their loyalty to Scannell, 45-19-1 overall in seven seasons as head coach (1986-92) before being forced to resign, his players felt, when the position was made full-time with the program's elevation to Division 2, causes lingering ill will toward the school by some former players, said Aylward.
Even so, Aylward calls UMass Lowell "the best four years of my life."
Some serious talent
The school attracted interesting football talent. Rich Demers, a running back on the final UMass Lowell football team that finished 3-8 in 2002 under coach Wally Dembowski, three years later was on the Cincinnati Bengals' practice squad. Demers had transferred to UMass Amherst after Lowell eliminated its program.
UML's other close brushes with the NFL involved tight end Tom Lafferty of Lowell, a 1991 captain and genuine pro prospect who was struck down by a knee injury, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell being UMass Lowell's commencement speaker in 2010.
Meehan, renowned Patriots season-ticket holder who became UMass Lowell's chancellor four years after football was dropped, is probably the biggest football fan in America to be in charge of a college that doesn't field a football team.
"If Marty was there when we were there, we'd be scheduling Notre Dame by now," joked Scannell.
Scannell, president of Lowell Iron and Steel Company, is not planning to attend the reunion. "But I still remember every single game, every single play, every single kid from those teams," he said.