NATION
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‘You’ve come a long way, baby’
Dukes celebrate 50 seasons of football this fall
rom a makeshift field with school administrators watching on lawn chairs to boisterous capacity crowds at a modern, on-campus stadium. From a scoreless season to winning two national championships and annually competing for others. From a roster recruited from class registration lines to a long list of professional standouts, including Super Bowl winners. All are parts of JMU football, which will play its 50th season in 2021, and to borrow a phrase from the era of its beginning, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
BY GARY MICHAEL (‘77)
The Dukes have gone from a nonscholarship team to an elite NCAA Football Championship Subdivision program, one that has appeared in several national telecasts and twice hosted ESPN’s College GameDay. JMU’s 2004 and 2016 teams won FCS championships, and the Dukes were 2017 and 2019 national runners-up. They’ve reached the FCS playoffs in each of the last seven seasons, 12 times since 2003 and 17 times overall. Numerous Dukes have had prominent pro careers, including Charles Haley, the first five-time Super Bowl winner and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and three members of Tampa Bay’s 2021 title team.
MAKESHIFT FIELD
In the early years, Madison College’s football team played its games on Godwin Field, with fans sitting in folding chairs or standing along the sidelines.
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M A D ISON
M AG A Z I N E
CELEBRATE 50 SEASONS OF JMU FOOTBALL
PROUDLY DISPLAY THIS COMMEMORATIVE DOUBLE-SIDED POSTER!
