Wittenberg's 1973 National Football Championship Team Celebrates 30th Anniversary This Weekend

Wittenberg players and coaches from the 1973 NCAA Football Championship team are honored on the field at halftime of the Sept. 27 home football game.

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Thirty years ago, the Wittenberg University football team set a new standard for all other small colleges to follow. The Tigers won the first NCAA Division III Playoff championship by defeating Juniata 41-0 in Phenix City, Ala., site of the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.

The 1973 edition of the football Tigers posted the best record in school history (12-0) and remains the last Wittenberg football team to finish the regular season and NCAA Division III Playoffs undefeated. This weekend, Sept. 26-27, the first football team in NCAA Division III history to win a national championship decided not by votes cast in a poll, but by outstanding performance on the field, will reunite on campus.

More than 30 coaches and players from that team, including Head Coach Dave Maurer, Assistant Coaches Ron Murphy and Dick Fahrney and Sports Information Director Don Perkins, are expected to attend the weekend's festivities. Randy DeMont, the 1973 Hank Critchfield Award winner as the top defensive back in the Ohio Athletic Conference, and Steve Drongowski, the 1973 Mike Gregory Award winner as the most valuable offensive lineman in the OAC, have organized the event.

"It's a very special time for us," said DeMont, who now lives in Colorado. "When you look at our team 30 years ago, we were coming off back-to-back 5-4 seasons. That 1973 team came together in a very special way.

"We weren't necessarily the best athletes, but we were the best team. It was enhanced by the fact that the NCAA created the Division III playoffs. It was a special time in our lives, and the fact that there has been such a positive response to this reunion is a testament to that fact."

The weekend's events, which coincide with Parents Weekend at Wittenberg, begins with storytelling and dinner at 105 Shouvlin Center on Friday. On Saturday, a special pre-game "tailgate" party for friends and families is scheduled to take place in the Hollenbeck Hall Atrium and Ness Auditorium. During halftime of the Wittenberg-Thomas More football game at Edwards-Maurer Field, university officials will recognize the 1973 team in a special ceremony.

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