Flashback
115 years ago
UB’s first football team
Fourteen UB medical students formed the university’s first football team following the same-year founding of the UB Athletic Association in 1894.
Team members bought their own uniforms of blue jerseys, tight pants (tell Terrell Owens that his Bills practice garb is a Buffalo flashback) and leather boots. They practiced at Brown’s Riding Academy on East North Street and at John’s Riding Academy on East Utica Street. Players had to adroitly avoid “remnants of horses that grazed their practice pastures” (as quoted in a 1996 football program).
Since there were just 14 men on the team, most of them played both offense and defense. A.B. Stein was team captain and T.C. Moore served as team manager. The first season was not auspicious, with two games played: a six-point loss to Hobart College and a 0-0 tie with the University of Rochester. However, by 1896 the team won nine games, losing just once, and two games ended in a tie. The 1897 team achieved a perfect 7-0 winning record playing such teams as Niagara University, Western Reserve and Syracuse.
By the turn of the century, the UB football team had gained so much local popularity that a number of games were hosted at Buffalo’s Civic Stadium. The team’s impressive record from 1894 through 1899 was 17 wins, four losses and five ties. An exhibition game played at the Pan American Exposition in 1901 was a dark day for the UB men: They took an historic 128-0 drubbing from the University of Michigan team. In 1915, the football team was nicknamed the “Bisons”; it permanently became the “Bulls” in 1931.
—Judith Adams-Volpe, University Libraries
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