By David Carducci
Record-Courier staff writer
Football has changed dramatically in the 55 years since Kent State first appeared in a postseason bowl game.
The 1954 Golden Flashes wore leather helmets and most without the protection of face masks. They ran what would now be considered an old-fashioned, run-first offense popularized at the time by Bud Wilkinson at the University of Oklahoma.
Their quarterback even called his own plays.
Kent State will celebrate the days before “Revolution” helmets, “spread” or “wildcat” offenses, and even offensive coordinators Saturday at Dix Stadium when 19 members of KSU’s 1954 Refrigerator Bowl team are honored during the Flashes’ Homecoming battle with Bowling Green.
Just as it was in 55 years ago, a Homecoming win over the Falcons could be critical to Kent State’s hopes of gaining just the third bowl bid in school history.
And even with all of the differences in today’s game, the current Flashes could still learn something from their predecessors who played at a time Kent State still considers its “golden years.”
“Back in those years, Northeast Ohio was used to winning football teams,” said 1954 team member Allan Kaupinen. “In Cleveland, the Browns always had winning teams. In Kent, we always had winning teams. We had a lot of talented players back then. The fact that Kent State has gone to only one other bowl game since (in 1972) is unfortunate.”
Current KSU head coach Doug Martin has a similar knack for finding talent to Trevor Rees, who won almost 60 percent of his games (92-63-5) as head coach at Kent State from 1946 to 1963.
At a time when some athletic programs resisted diversity, Rees welcomed players from all races, from fresh-faced recent high-school graduates to worldly veterans of the Korean War, and even football players who had to overcome physical disabilities.
One of the team’s stars was Luke Owens, who moved on to an All-Pro career as a defensive lineman for the NFL’s Baltiimore Colts and Chicago and St. Louis Cardinals. The quarterback was Don Burke, who tried out for the Colts right alongside eventual Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas. Burke may very well have found a career in the pros, “but I got an offer from Southern Illinois to be the backfield coach and was offered quite a bit more money than I would have made in the NFL,” he said. “My wife was pregnant at the time, so I took the job, but (legendary head coach) Weeb Ewbank told me if I didn’t like it, I could come back and try out again.”
Kent State also boasted some of the most dangerous runners in Mid-American Conference history in track stars like Lou Mariano and Jack Rittichier — two ball-carriers who should serve as inspiration for the playmakers on today’s KSU teams.
Mariano, who Burke and Kaupinen compared to former KSU star and current Cleveland Browns Pro Bowl kick returner Joshua Cribbs, flourished at fullback despite not being able to hear or speak.
“If I had to change a play at the line of scrimmage, I’d have to turn around and face him so he could read my lips,” said Burke.
The archaic term for Mariano’s disability is “deaf and dumb,” “But there was nothing dumb about Lou,” said Burke. “He would always know what the play was, anyway. And when he got the football, he was a lot like Cribbs with the way he could weave his way through a defense.”
Mariano’s 10.9 yards per carry in 1954 (1,037 yards on 95 attempts) is still a school record. With Rittichier adding more than eight yards per carry, the Refrigerator Bowl team managed several other single-season team records that still stand, including rushing yards in a season (3,392), yards per carry in a season (7.0), rushing touchdowns in a season (42), average yards per offensive play (7.4), total yards per game (451.3) and points per game (36.0).
“To have just one record hold up anyplace for 55 years, with the way the game has changed, that’s pretty remarkable,” said Kaupinen.
While the Kent State teams of recent years have boasted similar talents who have put their own stamps on the program’s record book, they rarely benefitted from players who could make winning plays when a game or a season was on the line. That may be the biggest reason for the Flashes’ current 37-year bowl drought.
KSU’s 1954 team was loaded with players who refused to shy away from performing in critical moments. Rittichier’s 90-yard touchdown run in that year’s Homecoming win over Bowling Green was just one example.
“Jack’s touchdown against Bowling Green saved the day for us,” said Kaupinen. “It was because of that play that we got the chance to play in the Refrigerator Bowl.”
Kent State went on to lose to Delaware on Dec. 5, 1954, on a mud-soaked bowl debut in Evansville, Ind., finishing the year at 8-2. Rittichier continued to pursue defining moments, however, as he joined the air force after graduation, then entered the Coast Guard as a helicopter pilot following the completion of his tour of duty.
“He became the biggest hero in the history of the United States Coast Guard,” said Kaupinen.
After several life-saving missions in the Great Lakes area, Rittichier volunteered for duty with the Air Force, flying combat rescue missions in Vietnam. He and three other crewmen died while attempting to rescue a downed Marine Corps pilot on June 9, 1968.
Two weeks ago, Kent State renamed its Most Valuable Player Award the Jack Columbus Rittichier Award, dedicating a plaque in Rittichier’s honor in Dix Stadium’s south plaza.
“To me, our reunion this weekend is the second part of the Rittichier dual weekends at Kent State,” said Kaupinen. “I’m hoping that having Jack’s memorial at one end of the stadium can help to build a new Kent State tradition, kind of like Notre Dame’s ‘win one for the Gipper.’
“The Rittichier story is as compelling as there is anywhere. When he tried three times to get the Marine pilot off the ground on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, he didn’t have to volunteer again, but he showed those special characteristics you want in a football player. He did the same thing at Kent State. When we needed a 90-yard touchdown, he got it.”
Kaupinen and his teammates would like to see Kent State’s current and future players visit Rittichier’s memorial and take the time to remember the Flashes of 1954.
“Now that Jack is in that stadium, I think when our football team opens practice in the fall, someone should go read his story,” said Kaupinen. “It’s a simple story. But if our kids want to be men of character, men who want to do extraordinary things, it’s all right there on that Refrigerator Bowl team.”
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David Carducci can be contacted at dcarducci@recordpub.com