500th UCF Football Game Evokes Lots of Local Memories

ORLANDO—When UCF played its first football game in 1979, the result didn't qualify as national headline news.
 
The Knights of Florida Tech, as they then were known, initially competed at the NCAA Division III level.
 
UCF gained some measure of credibility by playing home games at the downtown Citrus Bowl Stadium (now Camping World Stadium and then known as the Tangerine Bowl)—and the team finished 6-2 that season. The Knights won their first four games, setting a Division III attendance record when 14,188 fans showed up for their first home game (a 7-6 win over Fort Benning, a team of soldiers from the Georgia Army base). Single-game tickets sold for $4 each—and a four-game package went for $13.
 
Members of that initial coaching staff worked on a volunteer basis, most taking time from other full-time jobs. Practice-field conditions, locker rooms and equipment all were a far cry from the current state of football at UCF. Players on road trips subsisted on a $6 meal allowance per day.
 
"I was working for the City of Orlando at the time (1979) as recreational director for the entire city," says Don Jonas, the program's first head coach. "Carl Lankford, the mayor, and UCF's president, Dr. Trevor Colbourn, got together and the mayor agreed to release me for practices in the afternoon. Then I did the same thing to make our assistant coaches available. We had 11 coaches and nine of them had NFL experience.
 
"But I knew we would have a good football team, just because of the talent level around Orlando—even if those people had just come to school at UCF in the beginning, never intending to play football."
 
Players and coaches from that first team celebrated the 40th anniversary of that 1979 campaign two seasons back—and this weekend represents another historic milestone for the program as UCF plays its 500th game (4 p.m. ET Saturday at the Bounce House against Connecticut). 
 
Florida products—especially those from the general Orlando area—made up a big part of that first team. Many of those individuals have remained in Orlando—and a number are season-ticket holders who come on a regular basis to see current Knight teams play. That helps keep alive the spirit of those fledgling beginnings.
 
Orlando's Hometown Team? Those Knights of old lived up to that moniker long before it became a recent catchphrase.
 
Start with Jonas (he turns 83 next month), a former player at Penn State and a Canadian Football League all-star. He played in Toronto, Winnipeg and Hamilton in 1970-74 and was the CFL Most Outstanding Player in 1971 with Winnipeg.
 
Jonas, who earlier played minor-league football in the 1960s with the Orlando Panthers, led UCF in its first three seasons (1979-81) on the gridiron, later assisted with radio broadcasts of Knight football and still lives in nearby Winter Garden, Florida. Former UCF defensive end Mike O'Shaughnessy calls him Central Florida's "first celebrity athlete."
 
A number of the most prominent names from that first team—including captain, running back and top ground-gainer Mike Stapp (from Orlando), linebacker and tackle leader Billy Giovanetti (from Casselberry) and O'Shaughnessy (from Winter Park)—have continued to live and work in the Orlando area. Many are routinely on the scene when UCF plays at home. Together they (and their tailgates) keep the memories of those early days alive.
                                                        
That makes this 500th game even more meaningful for those who were there at the very beginning.
 
Giovanetti remembers the first-season tryouts: "There were maybe 150, 160 guys out there in the beginning. I was 17 at the time, but there were guys in theirs 30s and even 40s trying to play college football. I was taken aback a little bit by that. I brought my helmet from high school, had it approved by the trainer and used it every day."
 
Adds O'Shaughnessy, "We had three-a-day practices for two weeks and that weeded out a lot of guys. Initially we had to lay the sod on the field where we practiced. In the beginning we had a mix of legitimate high school football stars like Billy (Giovanetti) and Mike (Stapp) along with guys who had been bouncers in bars and thought they were tough enough to play.
 
"When you looked out on the practice field there were 80 different kinds of cleats and 80 different kinds of socks. I had my junior high school helmet until it cracked right through the middle. It was ragtag in the beginning because there was just no money available."
 
Stapp remembers players transferring in to play at UCF from places like Michigan and Miami: "We had the transfer portal before there really was a transfer portal. There were a lot of good athletes who came to UCF when they heard there was an opportunity to play football. And it was good football."
 
The Orlando Chamber of Commerce Sports Committee solicited local businesses and raised $40,000 to offset expenses in that first season. The UCF Athletic Authority approved a full-time salary of $20,000 for Jonas beginning with his second year in 1980—and Jonas also had a budget of $10,000 to pay assistant coaches. In that second season UCF games could be heard in the Orlando area on WLOQ 103.1 FM.
 
UCF's first game came on the road at Saint Leo, 30 miles north of Tampa and the oldest Catholic institution of higher learning in the state.
 
"We did not know anything about them," says Jonas, "so I sent one of our assistants down there to watch practice for a week and tell us what they were doing.
 
"At that first game, half the field was under water."
 
Adds O'Shaughnessy, "It really was a converted cow pasture. It's actually a soccer field now. Coach told us this was the most important football game we would ever play because it would set the tone for the program."
 
Jonas says, "I remember after that first game (UCF won 21-0) Dr. Colbourn was standing right behind me, and I turned around and said, 'Doc, that was for you.'"
 
The first home game versus Fort Benning (quarterbacked by Leamon Hall from nearby Apopka High School) was dubbed "Saturday Knights Live" by the Orlando Sentinel (then the Sentinel Star).
 
After the contest the paper quoted Jonas saying, "I told our kids they'll remember this win for the rest of their lives."
 
The Sentinel Star went on to suggest the postgame din in the Central Florida locker room "rivaled a rock band for noise levels."
 
Jonas, Giovanetti, Stapp and O'Shaughnessy qualify as the ringleaders of that group of '79ers.
 
Says O'Shaughnessy, "We have a very unique bond, as far as being on that first football team."
 
Adds Giovanetti, "Back in the day we would talk and envision where we could be in 30, 40, 50 years.
 
"From what we had in 1979 to where we are now, it's just incredible. We are really proud of what we've helped build and what the brand is about."
 
Says Stapp, "When we were playing on the road, staying four to a room, we'd be watching Florida and Florida State on television, and we'd say, 'Someday that'll be us.'
 
"We are so young as an institution that it's really unique that all the players from that first team are still here."
                                                        
What makes Jonas most proud of those first few teams? 
 
"It's the camaraderie we had with that first team," he says, "and the same camaraderie five, 10, 15 and 20 years later. We never left each other—we stayed together over the years."
 
Adds O'Shaughnessy, "Don is like a second father to all of us. He would work out with us in the old weight room. During practice he would throw the ball against our defensive backs. He was a players' coach--you wanted to play for this guy."
 
Says Giovanetti, "I remember thinking, 'Wow, this is awesome. We've got Don Jonas as our football coach. The guy is a legend.'
 
"It was a different day and time back in 1979, but we were committed just like these guys are now. We put the roots in the ground that have brought us to this current level."
 
Says Jonas, "That '79 team is the greatest bunch of people you could ever have.
 
"When I go to games now and walk in the stadium, I have people come up to me and say, 'Don, you're the guy that started this.'
 
"That's the greatest thrill I have."