Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 11, 1993 TAG: 9312110143
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Can't tell the players without a program? Heck, most of us have never even heard of the two schools. So whom should we root for in the Stagg Bowl in Salem today?
Here are some ways to decide:
1. Suppose this were Roanoke College vs. Radford University, instead.
Granted, neither one of them has a football team. But suppose they did. They would be the next best thing to Mount Union College and Rowan College.
Like Roanoke College, Mount Union (enrollment 1,400) is a small, church-affiliated school - in this case, Methodist.
Like Radford University, Rowan College (enrollment 9,800) is a state school that for most of its history was known as a teachers school and is evolving into something more.
So all you Roanoke College and Ferrum College and Emory & Henry and Randolph-Macon and Hampden-Sydney types, root for Mount Union. All you Radford and Longwood and James Madison folks, cheer for Rowan.
2. Ferocious nicknames or cute ones?
Mount Union is the Purple Raiders. Its logo is a stubby-looking sword. You can't get much more ferocious than that, unless you go for the one-eyed pirate with the crossed swords in the L.A. Raiders emblem.
Rowan, in a nod to the school's heritage of training teachers, is the Professors. Profs, for short. Creative, but not exactly fearsome.
"Hey! Hey! This is Division III," cautions Wayne Burrow, the NCAA's assistant director of championships. "Academics! We like that purist attitude."
Besides, who could resist the chance to read a headline like: "PROFS TEACH A HARD LESSON." Rowan wins the name game.
3. Mascot or no mascot?
Rowan's fans are cheered on by a student in an owl costume, as in the wise old owl, an appropriate symbol for academe. "People say the owl's not really ferocious," says Michele Daily, Rowan's public information director. "Personally, I think it's neat."
Mount Union doesn't have a mascot. Rowan takes this category by default.
4. Colors.
Please do not adjust your set. These really are the official colors: Rowan wears a color-coordinated brown and gold; Mount Union wears purple. All purple. Purple helmets, purple jerseys, even fat purple stripes on their white pants. "We look like a bunch of grapes out there," Mount Union spokesman Harry Paidas says.
A good reason to want to see Mount Union get stomped.
5. Cheerleader stunts.
Whenever Mount Union scores, its dozen cheerleaders fall to the ground and do push-ups, one for each point the team has on the scoreboard. By the end of last week's semifinal game in which Mount Union blew out St. John's of Minnesota, 56-8, the Raiders' cheerleaders were rather winded.
"It gets pretty hilarious," assures school spokesman Paidas. All in all, a reason to root for Mount Union to run up the score.
6. Most famous alumni.
Rowan's grads tend to make cultural contributions to society. Mary D'Arcy, now playing the female lead in the Broadway version of "Phantom of the Opera," is a Rowan grad. But the school's most famous alumni is probably Robert Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein on that seminal 1970s television show, "Welcome Back, Kotter."
Mount Union grads apparently take a more practical bent. Its most famous grad is the inventor of the Mister Coffee machine. (No, it wasn't Joe DiMaggio).
Culture or coffee? Take your pick.
7. Home-field advantage.
The two schools begin evenly matched. Rowan has 218 alumni in Virginia, six of those in the Roanoke Valley. Mount Union has 206 in Virginia, three in the Roanoke Valley.
For purposes of the game, Mount Union fans get to sit on the home side of the field.
8. School spirit.
Mount Union's got a clear edge here.
Rowan promises to bring "lots of people" to the game, perhaps 400 or more. This week, the school already had rented six buses and was scrounging around southern New Jersey for more. "They're having a hard time finding enough buses available," laments school spokeswoman Dailey. The school's also printing up "Rowan is No. 1" buttons.
But Mount Union is located in Alliance, Ohio, a touchdown throw east of Canton, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This is Ground Zero in the football world, and Mount Union's fans constitute one of the shock waves.
Mount Union estimates it will send 2,000 fans to the game. Buses? It's chartering a plane to bring in the last contingent of fans this morning. "We've got purple ribbons on car antennas, people are wearing them to work and we've got `Go Raiders' on every telephone pole in sight," Paidas says. "We're in the middle of probably the most rabid group of football fans in the country." (Except, perhaps, those in our own Pulaski).
Mount Union's uniforms apparently won't be the only thing that's loud.
9. Biggest endowment.
Hey, remember, this is Division III football. No scholarships. Academics rules.
In any event, there's no contest here. Rowan used to be Glassboro State College until 1992, when New Jersey industrialist Henry Rowan gave the school $100 million, and the college promptly changed its name. Now Rowan College boasts one of the biggest endowments of any school in the country. Haven't heard of Rowan? You will.
As for the man himself? "I'm not normally a football fan," confesses the 70-year-old founder of Inductotherm Industries, makers of industrial furnaces. But with the team, his team, winning this year, he's been a fixture at the games. "I just sit and cheer, like everybody else," Rowan says, although he admits to getting a kick out of it when "people tell me they like my football team. It's not my football beam, but I don't mind the compliment."
Old Man Rowan will be flying in this morning on his private jet. "I've been in Roanoke many times on business," he says.
10. Let history be your guide.
True, this marks the 100th year since Mount Union first fielded a football team. Old Glassboro State didn't have enough male students for a team until an influx of World War II veterans in 1946-50. But once the wave of G.I. Bill students ran out, so did football; the school didn't resume the sport until 1967.
Nevertheless, history is on Rowan's side. We don't mean football history - real history. In 1967, the college was the site of a Cold War summit between President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin. Why Glassboro, N.J.? Kosygin was in New York speaking to the United Nations; Johnson was in the White House. Neither wanted to lose face by visiting the other, so they split the difference.
What's the most famous thing to happen at Mount Union? Well, it claims to be the first American college founded as a coed institution. It also claims to have had the first college basketball team west of the Alleghenies.
by CNB