In 1979 running back Charles White of USC kept himself busy winning the Heisman Trophy, while an unbeaten Bear Bryant-coached Alabama team claimed the national title.
That same year in Orlando, UCF was playing football, too, albeit for the first time. Ten years after college football celebrated its centennial, the Knights were just getting started.
Mike Stapp, a running back and one of the offensive captains on that '79 roster, remembers it all like it was yesterday:
"The older we get the better we were.
"But, seriously, when you are the first in something there's a unique bond.
"I'll be 60 in December and it seems like it was yesterday when we were all playing, that's what's amazing."
Originally competing at the NCAA Division III level, those Fighting Knights, as they then were known, initially played games at Orlando Stadium, soon to become the Florida Citrus Bowl and now known as Camping World Stadium. They drew a Division III record crowd of 14,138 fans to their first official home game versus Fort Benning—and two other home crowds of more than 10,000 spectators watched them win games.
UCF began football that 1979 season with no on-campus facilities, a coaching staff—led by head coach Don Jonas—of volunteers and mostly donated equipment. Practices happened on a golf driving range—and when they were over there was no locker room, so players sought out showers in various other campus buildings.
That may not sound like the sort of major-college athletic experience that programs promote today. It also didn't mean those players and coaches didn't create their own sets of memories on their way to a 6-2 record. (UCF did not have another winning year until 1986.)
Stories from that fledgling season figure to be shared roundly this weekend when 60 members of that squad (including Jonas and most of the assistant coaches) return to campus to celebrate the 40th anniversary of that season.
They'll stop to watch the current Knights practice Friday morning and then have lunch together at the nearby Garvy Center for Student-Athlete Nutrition. On Saturday night there will be a pregame social event—and then the entire group will be recognized on the field at halftime of the UCF-UConn football game at sold-out Spectrum Stadium. Josh Heupel's team will wear helmets Saturday night featuring a special decal recognizing the 1979 team and that inaugural season on the gridiron for UCF.
The sport got its start when then-University president Dr. Trevor Colbourn in January 1979 gave a speech and extolled the virtues of what a successful athletic program might mean to the University. He handed the assignment to athletic director Dr. Jack O'Leary. O'Leary held tryouts two months later (with players spending $14 a night to stay in dormitories), helped raise $40,000 to fund the program and arranged for the new team to play in downtown Orlando. He found six UCF graduate students to assist Jonas, a former NFL player who was offered the head coaching position on a full-time position after that 1979 season.
Stapp, an Orlando product, led that first UCF team in rushing (444 yards).
"Every year in the spring, on the Friday before the (UCF) spring game, we have a football players' alumni golf tournament somewhere here in town," he says. "And our class of '79 always has the largest turnout of any teams.
"There's still a closeness. Billy Giovanetti (a linebacker who led the team in tackles with 96) and I played on that first team, we've worked together--and his four boys and my three boys have tailgated together for 35 years. So there's no doubt there's a significant bond.
"You look at the facilities now and you think about the facilities we had--which were none. We had to provide our own clothes and our own cleats—we washed our own clothes every night, or at least some people did.
"But we had way more than 100 people go through the tryouts—we had bouncers from the bars downtown to actually a good number of very good athletes. We had some talent."
Giovanetti's most prominent recollection is the first day of practice:
"It seems like we had maybe 140 or 150 guys trying out, which was crazy. I was 17 years old at the time, but there were grown men 40 years old trying to make the team which was quite interesting. It was an experience.
"We had a bunch of scrappers out there who could make things happen. We were a bunch of guys who did not get scholarships to other schools, but we wanted to extend our careers. I played those first four years and had a great experience.
"The scuttlebutt among the guys back in those days was that this thing could turn into a monster over the years. And it's happened quite quickly. We're all tickled pink to be on this legacy team and see what it's evolved to today."
Stapp has great memories of the Fighting Knights' road trips.
"We traveled to one road game in Virginia in a bus," he says. "We stopped overnight in South Carolina and stayed four players to a room with two double beds each. It was not a pretty sight. But you had guys who really loved the game."
And Stapp and his teammates love what the Knights are doing on the field these days.
"Now, when we see the success of the program, it's amazing. Before, we would be waiting to play a game at night, we'd sit around and watch Florida or Florida State on television and say, 'Boy, one day, wouldn't it be something special if UCF ever got to that level?' And now look at the remarkable things they've done. And the current staff makes us feel so very, very welcome."
Stapp says plenty of his UCF teammates still live and work in the Orlando area. It's not uncommon for him to run into 10 or 12 former teammates when he comes to a Knights' home game.
"Most of the team was from Central Florida--a lot of guys from Hillsborough County—but most from the five-county area around here.
"And that first coaching staff had guys that played in the pros – Jonas with the Eagles (he played collegiately at Penn State and later was a Canadian Football League all-star) and (Tom) Bland (he played in the Canadian, Continental and United pro leagues), plus (John) Hemmer (he coached five state championship boys track and field teams at Orlando's Oak Ridge High School) and Bugsy Engelberg, who coached kickers at Florida State and coached Ray Guy with the (NFL Oakland) Raiders. And they got paid nothing, which was kind of crazy."
He's looking forward to seeing teammates like Fort Pierce product Bobby Joe Plain, who caught the first TD pass for UCF, and Orlando's Mike Cullison, who played quarterback—and Winter Park defensive end Michael O'Shaughnessy who led the roster with 10 sacks that year. It all brings back a flood of great memories.
"We had a locker room that was really only a bathroom stall, but it worked out great," Stapp says with a laugh.
"Our practice field was out past the pool in an area where they had golf classes. People would be hitting golf balls and if they hooked one it was feasible they could hit a football player.
"It was nothing manicured at all. We had one field and it was a goat ranch."
Stapp originally went to Georgia Tech as a preferred walk-on—but a knee injury prompted him to come to UCF to finish school.
"They announced a football team was coming together in the spring," he recalls. "It was amazing how quick it happened--the support from the community was tremendous."
Back then the UCF student body comprised a little more than 12,000 students.
"All you need to know," says Stapp, "is that back then University Boulevard was only two lanes.
"There were only five or six buildings on campus--and the campus stopped at the library."
The UCF '79ers will be telling and retelling all those stories and a lot more this weekend.
They absolutely haven't forgotten their UCF experiences—and UCF certainly hasn't forgotten them.
"A lot of people thought I was crazy to start football," Colbourn said in 1998, three years after UCF's football program advanced to NCAA Division 1-A.
"But it was the key to open the door for visibility."