Head coach Turner Gill has finally done it. A football team that only won 10 games in seven years is finally going somewhere.
After Gill and the Bulls defeated Bowling Green and clinched the Mid-American Conference East Division as well as a bowl game, Gill proved that minorities are capable of anything they put their mind to.
Gill said it best after the historical victory at Doyt Perry Stadium.
"It gives minorities hope," Gill said. "That's the only thing that exemplifies myself or anybody. It gives hope that things can get done. People of color and minorities, it doesn't matter. When you see someone having success, you want to emulate them. I'm just trying to help young men through football."
Gill, one of four black college football coaches in the country, is proving that it shouldn't matter whether a person is black or white or purple, but instead that they are capable of doing their job right.
Fifty years ago, Buffalo's football team earned the right to play in a bowl game and was invited to the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Fla. They turned it down because of two players on their team.
Halfback Willie Evans and defensive end Mike Wilson, two black players, were told they couldn't play on the field because of the color of their skin. The Bulls turned down the opportunity, closing the door on college football's postseason for half a century.
How fitting is it that, fifty years later, Gill and Athletic Director Warde Manuel, both minorities, have finally propelled a team to not just a bowl game but a conference championship as well?
It means everything.
In a time where a black man has been voted to be the next president of the United States, where does this say our country has come?
Buffalo is the only Division I school in the nation with a black athletic director, a black football coach and a black men's basketball coach.
Perhaps it's saying to give everyone a chance.
Who would think that, a game of all things, would mean so much more than a victory for the University at Buffalo? A duo of black men-no, a duo of men, has propelled a program, which has done so poorly in the past, into the national spotlight.
"It's great to see this for this university, this athletic department, the student body, alumni, also for the 1958 team, in honor of them," Gill said. "I'm proud of our players.
Gill has never experienced success like this before. While one of the most well known quarterbacks in Nebraska's history, Gill never had a season which defined success like the one he has led the Bulls to this year.
"This season has been outstanding," Gill said. "I have not been associated - obviously I've been involved with championship football teams - but in a season of 11 football games, I haven't been exposed to [something like this] as a player, I haven't been exposed to it as a coach. Obviously you have games, but not a whole season the way it's been."
In a previous interview with The Spectrum, Evans explained the promise that the university shows when it comes to dealing with race.
"One reason why I'm still with the university is the way things have come," Evans said. "Diversity is something that has caught on with the campus. We're not there yet, but it has improved significantly since I was here."
Gill has only made a small bump in the big college sport picture. Hopefully, this is merely a catalyst for something more.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
