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60th reunion of the 1949 Fort Lewis A&M College football team
Dino's Italian Restaurant · Lakewood, Colo.
June 23, 2009
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Members of the 1949 FLC football team (top row, L-R): Bill Noxon, Dick Cochran, Glenn Clayton, John Gjellum, Ken Green, Marty Skiffich, Bill Gillin; (bottom row, L-R): Fred Sabell, Muzzy Vechiarelli, Bill Mullane, John Mullane, Doug Kullerstrand.
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(L-R): Doug Kullerstrand, John Gjellum and a friend who didn't attend FLC enjoy lemonade and share memories. |
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Left side of table, front to back: Dusty Saunders, Bill Noxon, John Mullane. Right side of table, front to back: Marty Skiffich, Bill Gillin, Ed Mullane. (Ed did not attend Fort Lewis A&M; he's the brother of John and Bill Mullane.)
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Alumni Board of Directors member David Bliesmer (1999) and Fred Sabell pose for a photo. David played linebacker for the Skyhawks exactly 50 years after Fred played linebacker for the Aggies. |
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Posters from the 1949 season. The one on the left was the schedule poster that was hung around Southwest Colorado; the one on the right welcomed the team to Tyler, Texas, for the Tyler Rose Bowl Game. The posters were dropped off by '49 team member Duane Skinner.
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Classmate Dusty Saunders (top row, far left) joined his classmates at Dino's on June 23, 2009. Dusty played basketball for the Aggies during 1949-50 and went on to become one of Colorado's favorite journalists. He wrote for the Rocky Mountain News for 53 years and currently writes a sports-on-television column for the Denver Post.
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The 1949 Fort Lewis College football team held its 60th reunion on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at Dino's Italian Restaurant in Lakewood. A dozen members of that team, plus Fort Lewis A&M and high school classmates, family and friends dined on Italian sandwiches, spaghetti, pizza, salad and bread. Three FLC employees — Director of Athletics Kelly Higgins, Director of Gift Planning Jeff Jantz and Director of Alumni Relations Chris Aaland (1991) — drove to Denver from Durango, while Alumni Board of Directors member David Bliesmer (1999) took a long lunch from his job as a senior mortgage consultant with Academy Morgtage Corporation to join the '49 Aggies.
David played linebacker for the Skyhawks from 1996-99, finishing his career exactly 50 years after the '49 team. He posed for photos with Fred Sabell, the man who played the same position for Fort Lewis 50 years earlier. At just 145 lbs., Fred may have been the smallest linebacker in school history! He designed his "Fort Lewis College Football 49" t-shirt in 1960, and has worn it exclusively for team reunions ever since.
The '49 team was inducted into the FLC Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. They posted a 6-4 overall record, but won six of seven games against teams in their junior college conference. They advanced to the Tyler Rose Bowl Game against the powerful Tyler Junior College Apaches. Though they lost 40-0 on that rainy Dec. 10th day, the '49 Aggies were the first FLC football squad to advance to a bowl game. (The 2006 Skyhawks were the next FLC football team to go to a bowl game, beating Dixie State College 24-14 in the Dixie Rotary Bowl.)
Denver Post newspaper articles cited the skills of backs Bill Noxon, Bill Mullane and Dick Cochran, the Denver recruiting of Coach Bus Bergman, the size and strength of Paul Sciranka and Joe Scott, and a game-saving pass interception in the final league game by Glenn Clayton as keys to the Aggies' success.
The reunion also featured Dusty Saunders, who played basketball at Fort Lewis A&M during 1949-50. Dusty is best known to Colorado sports fans as a longtime columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post. He wrote for the Rocky for 53 years before it closed its doors this year. Now he writes a sports-on-television column for the Denver Post. Look for an article about Denver students who attended the Old Fort in 1949 in a future Fort Lewis College Foundation publication and on the FLC Alumni website. |
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