Yankee Conference 1996

In this post, we discussed the Yankee Conference’s inaugural season of 1947. Now, let’s look at 1996, the 50th and final season of the YC before it morphed into the Atlantic 10 football conference and, in 2007, the Colonial Athletic Association. 

One quick note: I have no plans to do full histories for James Madison, Richmond, Villanova and William & Mary unless there’s some massive demand (or JMU jumps off the flavor-of-the-week uniform derby). These four are here just for the sake of completeness. But ya never know …

The YC split into two divisions from 1993-96: The Mid-Atlantic (all the newbies who had joined the YC over the previous decade, including decidedly non-Mid Atlantic Northeastern) and New England (with the six traditional YC teams). The YC’s successors, the A-10 and CAA, used a two-division setup off and on over the next several seasons, but the CAA has gone with one division since 2010. 

My memory may be fuzzy, but I seem to recall there was some hand-wringing over how the Mid-Atlantic teams basically marched in during the 1980s and took over the good ol’ YC (in both 1995 and ’96, five league teams ended the season nationally ranked in the TSN poll, four from the Mid-Atlantic). Of course, just two years later, UMass became the first YC/A10/CAA team to win the FCS (I-AA) national title, so who knows?

The YC ended after NCAA legislation frowned upon single-sport conferences in "major" sports such as football and basketball. The YC needed to attach itself to an already existing conference, and the Atlantic 10 was willing to oblige. 

And now, some notes about the season and uniforms, with an emphasis on our “guest” teams …

William & Mary was the final YC champion, and thus got to retire the sacred Bean Bot trophy, which apparently now sits in the Tribe’s trophy case. (Kinda odd for a team that played in the conference only four years. In a better world, a longtime YC powerhouse like UNH or UMass would have won the last title.) W&M’s uniforms have yellow trim here, but the Tribe switched to gold around 2001, and have kept it ever since. 

One of W&M’s more notable players was safety Sean McDermott (No. 28), who was an all-A10 selection in 1997. The former walk-on now coaches the Buffalo Bills for a living. (Speaking of coaches, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was a standout wide receiver at W&M from 1991-94.) Another safety, Darren Sharper, was a two-time All-American and three-time all-YC selection who was named YC defensive player of the year in ’96. He went on to an outstanding NFL career with the Packers, Vikings and Saints … and currently is doing a 20-year sentence for multiple rape and drug-related charges.

Also note the unusual placement of the YC patch on W&M’s home jerseys; it’s on the shoulder instead of on the front. One of Northeastern’s road styles has it on the sleeve.

Villanova, which became a I-AA/FCS powerhouse almost immediately after resuming the program in 1985 following a four-year layoff, had some notable players, too. Wide receiver Brian Finneran (No. 25; two brothers were teammates, thus the full name on the back) went on to a distinguished NFL career, mostly with the Atlanta Falcons. His Wikipedia bio offers this gem: “Finneran also has one of the most powerful and sought-after cards in the Ultimate Team portion of the video game Madden 25 due to him being listed as 6'7", two inches taller than his actual height.”

Nova’s helmets are kinda off compared with the rest of its color scheme: The Wildcats have always had navy blue as their primary color, but the “V” on the helmet had bright red and gold trim, while the jersey trim veers closer to maroon. Today, the uniforms use light blue trim, obviously out of a deep respect for my Black Bears. (Sarcasm mode)

And let’s not forget Villanova’s cartoonish primary logo from this period, which I believe lasted only a year or two, and for good reason: You’re a Division I school, not a minor league hockey team.

A logo only an Odessa Jackalopes fan could love.
Actually, that team is still around, so what do I know?

I miss the old James Madison uniforms that served the Dukes well for many years: Gold helmets, purple jerseys and gold pants. These days, it’s white helmets and pants, and it’s not the same. (The gold lids were worn for one game in 2019, I believe.) Although methinks JMU fans would rather watch a perpetual powerhouse than a mediocre team in throwback duds, right? 

JMU didn’t make the I-AA playoffs in ’96, but qualified in ’94, ’95 and ’99 — and all four games were against teams that now play in FBS (2 against Troy, 1 apiece against Marshall and Appalachian State).

Richmond was the one Mid-Atlantic team (I don’t really count Northeastern, which was a YC team in everything but name for decades before it officially joined in ’93) that didn’t dominate the YC in ’96. I did a post a while back on the most boring uniforms in this project, but these unis win the Bland Bowl trophy hands down. Plain navy helmets, plain navy jersey with a white sleeve stripe and plain white pants — the whole thing looks like those awful airbrushed photos Topps used in the 1970s when it made football cards but didn’t have a license to use NFL logos. The Spiders wore flashy red-and-silver uniforms until former Maine defensive back Jim Reid became coach in ’95. Wonder why he chose to make his team look so dull? (Reid, who played at Maine in the early ‘70s, is still coaching, and was Boston College’s defensive coordinator the last four years.)

Spiders linebacker Paris Lenon (No. 6) went onto a journeyman NFL career as a linebacker/special teamer.

Other tidbits from ’96 …

• New Hampshire had one of New England’s most exciting players in Jerry Azumah, who ran for 1,308 yards and 17 TDs and was named the YC’s offensive player of the year. (Two years later, he took home the Walter Payton Award as the top player in all of I-AA/FCS.) He went on to a Pro Bowl NFL career as a Chicago Bears special-teamer.

Jerry Azumah flies high against Villanova in 1996.

• Maine’s Jack Cosgrove was named YC coach of the year after leading the Black Bears to their best record in seven years. Maine had to toil in a temporary stadium after Alumni Field, their home since 1946, was condemned. (Alfond Stadium, its current digs, was built in 1998.)

Maine offensive lineman Mike Flynn blocks against James Madison in 1996.
Flynn went on to start for the 2000 Baltimore Ravens team that won the Super Bowl.

• Rhode Island’s game at UConn was cancelled after 31 players (yes, THIRTY-ONE) were involved in an assault on a URI fraternity the week of the game. You can read more on that here.





Rhode Island faces Boston U. in 1996.
This photo came from the 1997 Renaissance yearbook, but it looks more
like a fan pic from the stands, which it probably was.



• Delaware's 8-4 season, which included a trip to the I-AA playoffs, was actually pretty ho-hum by the Blue Hens' standards. In the '90s, Delaware made the NCAAs six times and had a winning record every year.

• Northeastern, meanwhile, had only two winning seasons the whole decade -- '96 and '97. The Huskies' coach, Barry Gallup, was a player and assistant coach at Boston College for 25 years before he took over at Northeastern, going 38-60-1 from 1991-99. (Trivia: One of his NU assistants was current Jaguars coach Doug Marrone.)

Northeastern visits UMass in 1996. The attendance in Amherst was 12,206;
the Minutemen's largest crowd in 2019 was 12,234 (HINT, HINT).

Yankee Conference 1947

Above are the uniforms for the Yankee Conference in 1947, the first season for the league that has since evolved into today’s Colonial Athletic Association (well, for football, at least).

The YC was established in 1946 when New England’s six land grant schools (i.e. cow colleges, and I can say that since I went to a Moo U😎🐮)  decided to form an athletic conference, effective with the ’47 season. In an era long before yearly conference jumping, the YC kept the same lineup until Boston University joined in 1972, followed my many other schools in the '80s and '90s. The league sponsored championships in other sports until 1978 and disbanded for football following 1996, its 50th season. The Atlantic 10 conference took up the banner from ’97-2006, and the CAA took over in ’07.  

The YC winner was presented with a trophy called the Bean Pot (not to be confused with college hockey's Beanpot), which was like the Stanley Cup in that the winner(s) got the keep it for a year, then passed it on to the next champ. (I seem to recall reading once that in the ‘70s, UMass coach Dick McPherson personally handed the Bean Pot over to UNH counterpart Bill Bowes after the Wildcats defeated the defending champion Minutemen for the title on the last day of the season at Cowell Stadium.) For years, I wondered whatever happened to the Bean Pot, but according to this thread, it resides in the trophy case of the College of William and Mary, which won the last YC title in ’96.

The Bean Pot, in all its glory.

Some other notes about the YC’s first season …

* As you can see, no one played a full 5-game league schedule. Some teams played as few as six games overall, and everyone had their own regional rivalries that took priority over the YC (ex. Maine had Colby-Bates-Bowdoin; Vermont had Norwich-Middlebury, etc.). Rhode Island was the first team to play a full YC slate (1955), and the first season when all six teams played a full schedule was 1966! 

New Hampshire went 8-1 overall, 4-0 in league play to capture the first YC title and play Toledo in the Glass Bowl. I discussed that team in this post. Three players (quarterback Bruce Mather, back Carmen Ragonese, and tackle Clayton Lane) were picked in the 1948 NFL Draft, and Ragonese also was selected in the ’48 AAFC Draft.

Maine went 6-1, with the one loss coming to UNH (of course!) and was the only other YC school with a winning record in league play. The Black Bears did sweep hated Colby, Bates and Bowdoin to capture the Barrows Trophy, emblematic of state supremacy (speaking of trophies and where-are-they-now …). Their coach was a gentleman named George Allen (no, not that George Allen), who took over in 1941, left to serve in World War II, and returned from ’46-48. His record at Maine was 15-11-2. This was the first of two seasons Maine wore tan pants in between stints with a monochrome look (examples here and here).

UConn went 4-4 under coach J. Orlean Christian, who went 66-51-4 with the Huskies from 1934-49. He also coached the baseball team (he reached the College World Series in 1957 and ’59), was athletic director from 1950-66 and was the YC’s first commissioner from 1966-71. The Huskies’ baseball field is named in his honor. I always thought the Huskies' unis from this era really stood out without being over-the-top (if you want over-the-top, check out UMass), and the sleeve stripes on the wrist are something different.

Rhode Island State (the “State” was dropped a few years later), as you can see  in the graphic above, didn’t have the most consistent helmet design, and the shirts and pants didn’t really match, either. Even the team photo resembles something more akin to a pickup outfit than a college team. The coach was Bill Beck (12-22-2 in 1941 and ’46-49), who later mentored the baseball team in the ‘50s.

Massachusetts, which later dominated the YC in the 1960s and ‘70s, tiptoed in the new league in ’47, playing only two league games and wining neither (the schedule emphasized regional rivals such as WPI, Springfield and Tufts). I have the team listed as “Redmen” above, but I believe the name wasn’t made official until after the season, in a January 1948 student vote. Massachusetts State College became the University of Massachusetts in ’47, and “Statesmen” was dumped for “Redmen” shortly thereafter. Of course, they have been known as the “Minutemen” since 1972. The coach, Thomas Eck (oddly enough, “Eck” was the nickname of Maine’s George Allen) was 17-23-4 over two stints from 1945-51. He coached at Maine’s Thornton Academy (I have family in Saco, so go Trojans!) in the ‘50s and won a pair of state high school titles. As for the uniforms, that all-gold ensemble as as garish as it gets, and as I've said a million times before about UMass in gold, it looks too much like Boston College. Thankfully, the gold shirts were replaced by white versions in '48.

Vermont also waded gently into YC action, and didn’t play anywhere near a full slate until the 60s. Coach John C. “Fuzzy” Evans ran the show from 1940-51 (and was an assistant for many years afterward) and also was a legendary basketball coach from 1940-65 (where his players included future coaches Rollie Massimino and Herb Brown, Larry’s brother). The Catamounts went 2-1 in state series games, defeating Norwich and St. Michael’s (which dropped the program in the ‘50s) and losing to Middlebury. Note the friction stripes on the back of the pants — those are at least a decade behind the times! (Trivia: UVM's QB was Gordon "Mickey" Cochran, patriarch of the Cochran ski dynasty and a pretty fair skier himself. He also played baseball and somehow found time to receive a degree in engineering.)

Boston College, Holy Cross, UConn, UMass (2019)

Better late than never, it's the final four schools in our review of the uniforms of 2019.

Boston College (6-7 overall, 4-4 ACC) trudged through another mediocre season, and coach Steve Addazio was replaced by Ohio State defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley at the end of the season. BC's uniforms were identical from last year; the only exception was the return of the maroon pants, last worn in 2015. Including minor variations (bowl patch, red bandana game trim), the Eagles for seven different styles, the most since they wore eight in 2012.

And speaking of multiple uniforms styles ... Holy Cross (7-6 overall, 5-1 Patriot League, PL champs) wore TEN different designs over 13 games, one shy of 2013 UMass for the most of any team covered by this here blog. Most of the excess comes from unnecessary use of black and gray shirts or pants, which don't really scream "Holy Cross." On the bright side, the Crusaders debuted a classy white helmet, which they badly need to adopt full-time. The 'Saders last wore white helmets in the early-mid 70s (see here and here).

UConn (2-10, 0-8 in American Athletic Conference for second straight year) kept it relatively simple for a team with four helmet designs (blue or white, each with a "C" or a husky head), with "only" five different looks. UConn adopted a clean, simple uniform vaguely reminiscent of what the Huskies wore when they went to the Fiesta Bowl after the 2010 season. (I can't believe I just wrote "UConn" and "Fiesta Bowl" in the same sentence, considering we're discussing a team that likely wouldn't have made the FCS tournament in 2019.) The Huskies lost their last 19 games as AAC members before they go independent in 2020. ("AAC" backwards is "CAA," which is where I wish they were playing.)

The bad news is that UMass (1-11, and the "1" was over 0-12 Akron) remains a gridiron joke. The good news is that the Minutemen looked great while losing games and relevance. UMass debuted a look that's even cleaner and simpler than UConn's, very vaguely recalling the school's 70s glory days. The 90s logo reappeared a couple times, for the opener and for homecoming. (The uni reveal last summer also featured a maroon helmet with the throwback logo, but it was never used.) The font UMass uses in its logo and marketing is nice, but the thick double outlines don't work as well for a sports jersey.