Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Union Homecoming


Frank Bailey Field


25 years is a long time.

But it’s hard to believe that 25 years is long enough for the folks at Union College to forget what Al Bagnoli did to turn around their Division III football program in such short order.

When Bagnoli took over at Union in 1982, the Dutchmen hadn’t enjoyed a winning season in a dozen years. The team immediately went 8-1 his first year and never had a losing record in his ten seasons at the helm. He left Union in 1991 to begin his legendary run at Penn and installed then-assistant John Audino as his replacement, who posted only four losing seasons in 24 years as head coach.

Now, Audino is Bagnoli’s assistant once again and they will return to the Union campus with the Lions in 11 days for a preseason scrimmage with Cornell.

They both deserve a hero’s welcome when they get to Frank Bailey Field in Schenectady.


I hope they get it.

3 comments:

Big Dawg said...

I wonder if Union has done anything in the past to recognize Bags.

On another note, perusing RPI preseason ratings it appears that only Cornell is judged worse than us, which indicates a 1-9 record. So I'm thinking that 3 or more wins is a major accomplishment. More significantly, playing every game tough and well will demonstrate our progress.

I'm hoping that we pull off an upset with St. Francis, since it will be their first visit here and we haven't been on their radar.

The secret, I think, will be the new recruits of the past 2 years who are as yet not known.

oldlion said...

My expectations are much higher. I expect that we will be competitive in every game, as we were in 9 of 10 last year, and actually finish with a winning record. We have six three star recruits and 9 or 10 two stars. We have strengths at QB, OL and the LB and DB positions. We have three good receivers, a good TE, and some talent at RB and on the DL. So these predictions from the media are largely worthless. PS, one of the coaches is tweeting about a big time OL commitment. And PPS, good to see Big Dawg blogging again.

oldlion said...

One of the coaches has blogged about a big time OL commit.