The Lambert Trophy/Cup (Part I)

There are some things in sports that used to be a big deal, but now … well, they’re not dead, but they’re basically on life support:

• Heavyweight boxing fights (rendered obsolete by UFC);
• Harness racing (once a religion here in Maine, now it’s a footnote to a footnote’s footnote);
• The Lambert Trophy.

Ah, the Lambert Trophy, and its kid brother, the Lambert Cup. In the days when Eastern football teams played largely independent schedules outside the Ivy League (after 1954), the Lambert Trophy was annually presented by one New York media group or another to the top team(s) in the East starting in 1936, not long after the attention of college fans became more distracted to goings-on in Tuscaloosa and Ann Arbor and South Bend and Fort Worth — places decidedly not in the East. 

The award served two purposes: to present a de facto conference title to a team in the indy-heavy East and publicize an area rapidly becoming left behind in the football rat-race. A Lambert Cup, for smaller schools, was established in 1957; Lamberts were later handed out to top teams in FBS, FCS and Divisions II and III.

(An aside: I always thought the Lambert Trophy had something to do with a gentleman named Piggy Lambert, but it was actually donated by a couple brothers named Lambert who ran a Madison Avenue jewelry store. Piggy Lambert was a Purdue basketball coach; one of his players was some guy named John Wooden.)

The Lambert Trophy was a big deal for many years before it lost steam somewhere along the way, kinda like harness racing. Apparently it’s been presented haphazardly in the 21st century, and some of the awards have been retroactive. Guess a Lambert’s not as sexy as an appearance in the R&L Carriers Bowl.

Anyway, this and the next few posts will concern Lambert Trophy/Cup winners from the teams covered by this site: twelve Trophy winners and 44 Cup champs (get ready for a lotta Delaware). We’ll start with the big award, the Trophy.

Some miscellaneous notes:

• Boston College won the Trophy five times, the most of any team covered here.
• Delaware has won 19 Cups, eight from FCS and 11 (including seven straight) from its Division II days.
• Despite decades as FCS regional powers, New Hampshire and UMass have fewer Cups (two apiece) than Rhode Island (three).
• Four Ivy schools (Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale) won the Trophy; the only Ivies to win the Cup were the Dartmouth-Harvard-Penn three-way tie in 2015.
• Teams covered by this site that have never won any Lambert booty: Brown, Bryant, Central Connecticut, Columbia, Fairfield (defunct), Merrimack, Northeastern (defunct), Sacred Heart, Stonehill, UMass Lowell (defunct), Vermont (defunct). Mostly defunct programs, D-I newbies and career mediocrities or worse.
• New Haven won four D-II Cups, the last (2011) coming after the program was suspended and revived.
• Penn State (35) has won the Trophy more than anyone else, 26 more than second-place Army.
• Two New England teams not covered by this site (Plymouth State, Wesleyan) each won a Cup, and I’ll probably toss them in.
• Yes, UConn really made the Fiesta Bowl that time.

OK, onto the Lambert Trophy winners, in chronological order:

My favorite tidbit about the '39 Big Red is that they turned down a Rose Bowl invite so the athletes could catch up on their classwork. So I'm guessing they didn't use NIL cash to get that No. 4 ranking?

BC claims a national title for this team, and the Eagles might not be wrong, since their bowl win over unbeaten Tennessee happened after the final polls came in.

BC won the Trophy despite losing to Holy Cross in the Cocoanut Grove fire game that probably saved the Eagles' lives.

Princeton clinched an undefeated season by beating Dartmouth while a hurricane was literally blowing through New Jersey.

The year Dick Kazmeier won the Heisman Trophy, the third and last by an Ivy player.

Yale shared the award with Navy.

The first year of the classic Dartmouth helmet we all know and love.

The Big Green won six games by shutout and is the last Ivy team to finish in the major national rankings. Longtime coach Bob Blackman left for Illinois after the season.

BC's first ranked finish in 41 years.

After beating Holy Cross in the regular-season finale, Doug Flutie hopped into a helicopter for New York to accept his Heisman in person that night.

The first year of the Matty Ice (Matt Ryan) era.

Coach Randy Edsall didn't fly with the team back to Connecticut from the Fiesta Bowl, I guess because he was so eager to run Maryland into the ground.

American International Yellow Jackets (1970-71, 74)

The more I think about it, the more I realize the period from roughly 1963-73 was a bit of a golden age for New England/Ivy League football. Little (and big) All-Americans, undefeated teams, bowl teams, nationally ranked teams, a Heisman runner-up, a game of the century candidate — there was always something going on each fall. 

The wonderfully named American International College of Springfield, Mass., made its own contribution to this era, Although the Yellow Jackets played what would be considered a Division II/III schedule by today's standards, they somehow came up with Little All-American Bruce Laird, a Lowell, Mass, native who went on to a 12-year career as a standout safety for the Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers. (An aside: Do you realize after the 2026 season the Ravens will have been in Baltimore as long as the Colts were? We're all getting old.)

A Portland Press Herald clipping from 1971.

At AIC, Laird was more than a great defender: he was close to a 60-minute man at a time when 60-minute men had gone the way of leather helmets (well, at least until Gordie Lockbaum came along). He ran for 1,402 yards as a senior in 1971, and he was the team's punter and punt/kickoff returner. The Colts grabbed him in the sixth round of the 1972 NFL Draft and he made the Pro Bowl as a return specialist his rookie year. He also played a couple years in the USFL.

An AIC newsletter from 1971 hypes up Bruce Laird.

Oddly enough, AIC never had a winning record with Laird; the Jackets were 4-5, 2-6-1 and 4-5 in his three seasons in Springfield.

A few years later, AIC made a bit of history when it defeated Vermont in the final game in Catamounts' history.

The uniforms, at least from '71 onward, vaguely resemble the New Orleans Saints, especially those Topps cards from the '70s when all the logos were airbrushed off.