Flashback
The history of UB football
The 1897 UB football team finished the season with a 7-0 record, the university’s only undefeated season to date. Image: UB ARCHIVES
Are you ready for some football?
UB’s long and colorful football history dates back more than a century to the founding of the University of Buffalo Athletic Association in 1894. That year, a group of 14 UB medical students formed the first UB football team and by 1897, the team finished with a 7-0 record—UB’s only undefeated season to date.
The UB athletics program was cancelled in 1903 due to a lack of financial support, personnel and leadership, but football was reinstated in 1915 with the appointment of the team’s first full-time professional coach and in 1931, the UB football team adopted the “Bulls” moniker. Intercollegiate athletics were suspended during World War II, but UB sports teams returned to the playing field in 1946 and the football program continued to flourish.
The Bulls achieved small college football supremacy in 1958 by winning the coveted Lambert Cup and a new chapter for UB football began in 1960 with the team’s move up to University Division status. Through the years, at every step along the way, student athletes, coaches, alumni and fans have enjoyed many exciting gridiron moments.
With this unique history in mind, the UB Libraries present UB Sports History, a digital collection that focuses on the early decades of UB football from 1894-1960. The collection includes vintage photos of team players, captains, coaches and spectators; it is the first installment in a series of digital collections that will showcase other UB intercollegiate sports teams—both men’s and women’s—from their beginnings to the present.
View Part 1 of the UB Sports History Digital Collection.
Go Bulls!
—Scott Hollander and Kathleen Quinlivan, University Libraries
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