1953 William & Mary Indians football team

The 1953 William & Mary Indians football team represented William & Mary during the 1953 college football season. The team is considered, within the school's community, to be one of the most remarkable stories in its athletics history.[1] Due to an academic cheating scandal (coincidentally unrelated to the 1951 scandal), eight of the team's starting members were dismissed from school and another portion of the remaining 33 players transferred out.[1] Among the 24 remaining players, five were returning Korean War veterans and one other had never played a minute of football in his life.[1] Many of them were undersized (the quarterback stood 5′8″ and weighed 160 pounds) and even the coaching staff was few in numbers (five total, one of them being the head basketball coach).

1953 William & Mary Indians football
ConferenceSouthern Conference
1953 record5–4–1 (3–2 SoCon)
Head coach
Home stadiumCary Field
1953 Southern Conference football standings
Conf  Overall
TeamW L T  W L T
No. 10 West Virginia $ 4 0 0  8 2 0
Furman 2 0 0  7 2 0
George Washington 4 2 0  5 4 0
William & Mary 3 2 0  5 4 1
Richmond 3 3 0  5 3 1
VPI 3 3 0  5 5 0
VMI 3 3 0  5 5 0
Washington and Lee 2 4 0  4 6 0
The Citadel 1 3 0  2 7 0
Davidson 0 5 0  0 9 0
  • $ Conference champion
Rankings from AP Poll

Their schedule was so tough that opposing teams would call ahead to make sure that William & Mary still intended on playing them the following week.[1] Remarkably, the Indians started the season 5–2–1 and the only reason they finished with a 5–4–1 overall record was due to accumulating injuries with few available substitutions.[1] Six of the players would go on to play professional football.[1] Their story of grit and determination in the face of overwhelming odds was later written about in a book titled The Iron Indians.[1]

Schedule

DateOpponentSiteResult
September 19vs. Wake Forest*W 16–14
September 26at Navy*T 6–6
October 3at Cincinnati*L 7–57
October 17VPIW 13–7
October 24George WashingtonW 12–7
October 31at NC State*W 7–6
November 7vs. VMIRoanoke, Virginia (Rivalry)L 19–20
November 14at RichmondW 21–0
November 21Washington and LeeL 7–33
November 28Boston University*L 14–41
  • *Non-conference game

NFL Draft selections

= Pro Football Hall of Fame = Canadian Football Hall of Fame = College Football Hall of Fame
Year Round Pick Overall Name Team Position
1954 3 12 37 Bill Bowman Detroit Lions Back
1954 5 12 61 George Parozzo Detroit Lions Tackle
1954 19 1 218 Jerry Sazio Chicago Cardinals Tackle
1954 22 5 258 Charlie Sumner Chicago Bears Back

References

  1. Ducibella, Jim (September 30, 2011). ""Iron Indians" recalls a season of grit, determination". The College of William & Mary. Retrieved June 26, 2012.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.