UB's Evans among 10 inducted into Greater Buffalo Hall
Ten individuals were formally honored by the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame at the Hyatt Regency on Thursday night. For nine of them, it was a rare chance to receive public acclamation for athletic accomplishments.
For the 10th, it wasn't so rare.
Evans, a former football player for the then-named University of Buffalo, has been getting similar tributes for the last several months. Thursday night's was another great honor.
"The best two years of my life," Evans called it. "It's been absolutely outstanding. It helps you to understand what it means to have a friendship with an individual or a group of individuals. Over the last two years, a lot of folks have asked, "How could this have possibly happened?' To the fellows who were involved in my sports career, it was a natural thing. But we never conceived of something like this lasting as long as it did, and being significant as it is in the community."
Evans was part of the 1958 UB football team that went 8-1, won the Lambert Cup as the top small-college team in the Northeast, and earned an invitation to the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Fla.
Except, the whole team wasn't invited — just the white players. Evans and the other African-Americans weren't part of the offer. So everyone, white and black, voted to stay home.
That Bulls team came back into the public eye early in 2008, as the 50th anniversary of that season approached. Local and national television features as well as newspaper articles started the ball rolling, and the team has been saluted from Buffalo to Orlando. The UB football team even helped by qualifying for the International Bowl last January — the first bowl game in school history.
Evans is best remembered locally for his outstanding career as a running back at UB, as he averaged 6.4 yards per carry. But his first love was track and field. He ran in the hallways at Emerson Vocational as part of his workouts.
"I was trying to prepare myself to challenge for the record in the long jump, which was 22 feet. I had jumped 23 feet in practice," Evans said. "But I tore a muscle that hurt my experience in the long jump."
It also cost him a scholarship at Purdue, which had been promised if he had set the record. Evans spent a year working as a tailor until UB said it had a football scholarship waiting for him.
He stayed connected to the university for years, at one point serving as the president of the UB Alumni Association. His connections with Western New York are deep and often surprising.
"My son is a musician. They travel the country, they travel the world," Evans said. "My son told me he was on a Dave Matthews cruise once. A guy who came up to him had to bend over because of the low ceiling. It was Cliff Robinson [another one of Thursday's inductees]. He was a fan of my son. There's all sorts of quaint experiences involving Buffalo folks."
Thursday was a time of reflection for Evans, who has been involved in the Buffalo Sports Hall for years. He was a member of the original board of directors. He was obviously touched by the reaction of his friends to this latest big night in his life.
"It's interesting that one of my neighbors in the old neighborhood, Central Park area, knocked on doors [to sell tickets]. They got two full tables," he said. "Another gentleman came up from Atlanta. I could understand my sister coming in, or my daughter from Chicago. But for a friend and neighbor to hop on a plane to come up here for this, it's just wonderful. As much as Buffalo gets knocked, and it's not much, there are things like this that bring the community together."
Evans was in good company at the head table of a banquet with about 600 attendees. Joining him were Dan Bazzani (basketball coach, player), Jackie Brummer (gymnastics), Jim Dombrowski (football), Joe Merlo (assorted sports), Robinson (basketball) and Lou Rosselli (wrestling). George Killian, a coach and administrator at Erie Community College, could not attend because of health reasons.
The Pride of Western New York Award went to the late Roger Crozier (hockey) and the late Al Dekdebrun (football).
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments