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JMU Nation + football poster
JMU NATION
‘You’ve come a long way, baby’
Dukes celebrate 50 seasons of football this fall
BY GARY MICHAEL (‘77)
From 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.”
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.
PROGRAM KICKOFF AND EARLY SUCCESS
Few people in 1972 could have envisioned JMU football’s development. But creating widespread enthusiasm and demonstrating that then-Madison College was no longer a small, mostly women’s school was the goal.
Then-President Ronald Carrier, assisted by longtime athletic director Dean Ehlers, pushed football. In his book Building James Madison University, Carrier wrote: “To truly transform Madison College’s image with students, faculty, and the larger public, especially in the Central Shenandoah Valley, we needed to field a football team, a sure way to project that we now operated as a coeducational institution. Football could provide needed campus activities on autumn weekends and counter the mass exodus of students each Friday who perennially complained about dull, boring weekends at Madison, earning the college the unenviable reputation as a suitcase school.”
Because many opposed football, believing Madison’s image would change and resources would shift away from academics, the program’s launch was delayed until July. That left coach Challace McMillin just three months to prepare—and without players. The original members were recruited while registering for classes at the start of the 197273 school year, and many disappeared before the initial practice.
The first schedule included one varsity and two junior varsity opponents and two military school teams. The opener was set for Oct. 7 at Harrisonburg High School—now Memorial Hall—but rain left the field unplayable. Madison’s staff arranged a practice area beside Godwin Hall for play, with fans sitting in folding chairs or standing along the sidelines. JMU lost 6-0 to Shepherd College’s junior varsity team and remained scoreless throughout its 0-4-1 inaugural season.
The team improved to 4-5 in 1973 while playing two varsity programs and securing its first victory, 34-8 over Anne Arundel Community College. The 1974 team faced a full varsity slate and finished 6-4, setting up one of Madison College’s more memorable campaigns.
The 1975 Dukes opened with a scoreless tie at Glenville State but then ran off nine wins to finish 9-0-1, the program’s only unbeaten season. Madison allowed a paltry 75 points, and no game was decided by more than 11 points. Seven wins were by seven or fewer points, with most outcomes in doubt until the final horn. Madison won the College Division Virginia College Athletic Association with a 5-0 record.
The winning streak reached 12 early in 1976 when the Dukes were tied for first in the NCAA’s initial Division III poll. That week, they played at Hampden-Sydney in the first D-III game televised by a major network (ABC). JMU remained a D-III program through the 1978 season before awarding scholarships and moving to Division II in 1979 and Division I-AA (now FCS) in 1980.
TRANSITION PERIOD AND LONG-TERM SUCCESS
The move to I-AA was challenging—backto-back 4-6 records in 1979 and 1980, and 3-8 in 1981—but with four classes of scholarship players, the 1982 Dukes finished 8-3, including a 21-17 win at Virginia, where JMU’s seniors had lost 69-9 in 1979. Haley had an immediate impact in 1982 as a freshman defender, and the team also featured future Washington Redskins wide receiver Gary Clark and JMU’s career rushing leader in freshman Warren Marshall (4,168 yards). Clark had an 80-yard touchdown catch in 1982 at Virginia and punt returns of 89 and 87 yards for scores there in 1983.
JMU first reached the NCAA playoffs in 1987 after a 9-3 campaign under coach Joe Purzycki. Rip Scherer led the 1991 and 1994 playoff teams, while Alex Wood, Mickey Matthews and Everett Withers directed the Dukes to postseason play in 1995, 1999 and 2014, respectively. All were first-year college head coaches. (More recently, Mike Houston (2016) and Curt Cignetti (2019) led the Dukes to the playoffs in their first seasons in Harrisonburg.)
JMU won at Division I-A Navy in 1989 and 1990, and Scherer’s 9-4 team in 1991 secured JMU’s first playoff win, 42-35 in double overtime at Delaware. The Dukes returned to the playoffs in 1994 and 1995 behind quarterback Mike Cawley, and the 1994 squad notched 10 victories—then a program record—and a playoff win.
The 1999 Dukes tied for the Atlantic 10 conference title— JMU’s first I-AA crown—and returned to postseason play. JMU opened at Division I-A national runner-up Virginia Tech and then won seven straight games behind Matthews, The Sports Network’s I-AA Coach of the Year. Matthews also was the A-10 Coach of the Year, and Curtis Keaton and Chris Morant were the league’s offensive and defensive players of the year, respectively. It marked the first time that one program received the league’s three major awards.
Matthews’ 2004 national championship squad was the first in I-AA history to win three road playoff games en route to a 31-21 victory over Montana in the title game. His 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2011 teams each reached the playoffs, and his 2010 squad received wide acclaim for its 21-16 win at nationally ranked Virginia Tech.
Few JMU home games can rival the excitement of the 2008 team’s under-thelights rally from a 21-0 halftime deficit for a 35-32 win over three-time defending national champion Appalachian State. Those Dukes had a 12-game winning streak and were the top playoff seed, and Matthews received The Sports Network’s Coach of the Year honors a second time.
Withers’ 2014 and 2015 teams reached the playoffs, and Mike Houston in 2016 led JMU to its second national crown, defeating longtime FCS power North Dakota State on the road, 27-17, before taking down Youngstown State, 28-14, in Frisco, Texas, for the title.
The Dukes returned to the FCS title game under Houston in 2017 and again in 2019 under Cignetti, and remain an FCS powerhouse. JMU has a 76-16 record during the last seven seasons, including 58-9 during the last five, and is 45-6 in conference play during that span. The Dukes have won or shared their league title eight times since 1999, including five of the last six seasons.
ON THE HORIZON
The level at which the team competes is a topic of conversation. Compete where you have been successful or transition to what some consider a more appropriate level? The answer is never easy. But considering the development and success of the program since 1972, JMU is well positioned for whatever the future holds.
STAR POWER
The names Charles Haley, Gary Clark and Scott Norwood are most often mentioned in discussions of JMU football, but 49 seasons have produced numerous other standouts.
Quarterback Les Branich and offensive lineman Jeff Adams were early cornerstones and lettered from 1972-75. Defensive lineman Woody Bergeria and linebacker Dewey Windham were early AllAmericans, and tailbacks Ron Stith and Bernard Slayton compiled remarkably similar statistics from 1973-76, both rushing for more than 2,000 yards.
Norwood enrolled in 1978 and became a leading I-AA placekicker; Clark arrived in 1980; and Haley and Marshall, who became the top rusher in Virginia college history, arrived in 1982. Haley was JMU’s first Associated Press FirstTeam All-American in 1985 and the following year became its first NFL draftee (San Francisco, fourth round). Clark was chosen sixth in the 1984 United States Football League Draft and later won two Super Bowls as a Washington Redskin.
Cawley threw for 6,482 yards and 42 touchdowns in three years for the Dukes, and Eriq Williams, a top performer on the 1991 playoff team, threw for 5,356 yards and 40 scores and had 7,678 career yards of total offense.
Safety Tony Booth, return specialist Delvin Joyce and Keaton were late-1990s standouts. Booth twice received All-America honors and had a 122-tackle, eight-interception season in 1997. Joyce surpassed 1,000 career yards for rushing, receiving, punt returns and kickoff returns and had a successful career with the New York Giants. Keaton ran for 2,783 yards in two JMU seasons and was a fourth-round NFL Draft choice.
Linebacker Derrick Lloyd led the nation in unassisted tackles in 2001, winning The Sports Network’s Buck Buchanan Award as I-AA’s top defender after compiling 157 overall stops, 7.5 quarterback sacks and five fumble recoveries.
Safety Tony LeZotte, in 2005 and 2007, and linebacker Akeem Jordan, in 2006, were league Defensive Players of the Year, and quarterback Rodney Landers and return specialist Scotty McGee were 2008 league Offensive and Special Teams Players of the Year, respectively. LeZotte was JMU’s first four-time AllAmerican, and center Scott Lemn won the 2008 Rimington Award as FCS’s best center.
Defensive end Arthur Moats won JMU’s second Buchanan Award in 2009 after leading the FCS in tackles for loss and its down linemen in tackles. He and Jordan, the 2006 College Sporting News Defensive Player of the Year, enjoyed extended NFL careers.
As JMU has dominated as a program during the last decade, individual accolades have flowed in. Dukes receiving league Defensive Player of the Year honors have included linebacker Stephon Robertson (2012, 2013), lineman Andrew Ankrah (2017), cornerback Jimmy Moreland (2018), lineman Ron’Dell Carter (2019) and lineman Mike Green (2020-21). Ankrah won FCS 2017 Defensive Player of the Year plaudits by the FCS Athletics Directors Association.
Quarterback Vad Lee, who in 2015 at Southern Methodist became the first D-I player to rush and pass for 275 yards in a game, was league Offensive Player of the Year that season, and Bryan Schor and Ben DiNucci won the award in 2016 and 2019, respectively. Kick returners Rashard Davis in 2016 and John Miller in 2017 and placekicker Ethan Ratke in 2020-21 were league Special Teams Players of the Year.
Davis (Philadelphia), D.J. Bryant (Baltimore), and Aaron Stinnie, Josh Wells and Earl Watford (Tampa Bay) have been on recent Super Bowl winners.
CONFERENCE AFFILIATIONS
JMU was a 1974 and 1975 VCAA member and then an independent until playing its first game in the Yankee Conference in 1993. The Atlantic 10 assumed the Yankee’s operations in 1997, and the teams transitioned to the Colonial Athletic Association in 2007.
PLAYING SITES
After the local high school field was too wet for JMU’s first game, it was the team’s home for the remainder of 1972 and 1973. Play moved to Bridgeforth Stadium/Zane Showker Field in 1974 on the first synthetic football surface in Virginia and with temporary seating. The current stands adjacent to Godwin Hall were added for the 1975 season and a similar arrangement across the field for 1981. The stadium’s first video board was installed in 2004, and the Robert and Frances Plecker Athletic Performance Center opened in 2005 and the current Lakeside stands in 2011.
FORMER JMU COACHES
McMillin coached JMU for 13 seasons (197284) and remained with the university as a faculty member and with athletics in a sports psychology role. Purzycki (1985-90) became a successful business executive. Scherer (199194) left to coach Division I -A Memphis, and Wood (1995-98) went on to become the Minnesota Vikings’ quarterbacks coach, Withers (2014-15) departed to coach Texas State, and Houston (2016-18) left to coach East Carolina. Matthews recently has worked as a college assistant and remains JMU’s winningest coach with a 109-71 record.
Belles of the ball
Softball Dukes dazzle in College World Series
JMU softball’s epic run to the national semifinals of the Women’s College World Series will forever be etched in institutional lore. Despite being a varsity program for fewer than 20 years, the Dukes left no doubt they have one of the best teams in the nation.
The JMU faithful will never forget the magical ride of 2021. “We wouldn’t be where we are without you,” head coach Loren LaPorte told fans at the team’s welcome-home celebration in June. “Thank you so much, JMU Nation!”
Keep fighting
Women’s tennis standout opens up about her eating disorder, anxiety, depression
BY AMANDA NORD
If you would’ve told the 15-year-old girl who sat on the couch eating an entire bag of Doritos that five years later she would be in her junior year of college, competing as a Division I athlete, all while battling three mental health issues, I think she would’ve stuck her middle finger up at you and walked away.
I would be lying to myself if I sat here and told you growing up on the tennis court was enjoyable. I don’t remember those years of my life because in my head they were classified as nightmares. I am not your typical athlete who loves playing their sport. I am not the girl who loves picking up a racket and hitting tennis balls for two hours every day. It has taken me the last 15 years of my life to realize what the sport of tennis truly means to me.
Take it from me: My journey of becoming the strong, young woman that I am today was far from easy.
The summer before my senior year of high school, my life changed for what I thought would be forever. Did I ever think it was possible for me to wake up one morning and decide not to eat? Everyone’s eating disorder story is different, and unfortunately that morning became the start of mine.
Little did I know, the next four years of my life would be spent battling a series of mental health struggles. It started with not eating, then it progressed to depression, then extreme panic attacks and anxiety decided they wanted to join the other two. Athletically, that same summer was probably the most important in my path to becoming a D-I college athlete. I was training three to four days a week, exercising any chance I got.
I have not gone a single day without any of these three illnesses controlling some aspect of my life. I would go to school every day not being able to focus on what my teachers were saying. My thoughts were geared toward food, navigating around my next meal, body image, and how I muster up the energy for practice later that day.
To this day, I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know how I managed to keep breathing, keep fighting and continue working hard to one day play tennis in college.
I had an easy time blocking out the horrific days of growing up on the tennis court, but the days where my legs would shake uncontrollably and my vision would go blurry from starving myself, those days I can’t seem to escape.
I will never forget the moment during my freshman year when I looked into the eyes of my coach and shamelessly lied as I told her I had eaten lunch that day. A two-hour practice with conditioning afterward and I thought I would get through it with no food in my system? I nearly passed out at the end and had to remove myself from my team because I was so embarrassed.
Amanda Nord’s journey has made her an advocate for mental health among college athletes.
Freshman year of college was everything from new experiences to hard work paying off to figuring out it wasn’t acceptable to not eat before practice.
Looking back, I know I’ve matured in my eating disorder because I can remember this moment and realize how far I have come in my recovery. I was exerting far more energy than was in my body, and that was a result of the monstrous voice in my head telling me, if I ate before practice, I would gain weight. You might be reading this and wondering how? How could someone who didn’t even know what a calorie was five years ago think like that? You’re guess is as good as mine.
I want to pause for a second and remind you it’s OK to not be OK.
Those words have been repeated to me thousands of times before, but I never had the strength inside of me to believe it. You should never feel weak or ashamed to ask for help. In fact, one of the strongest qualities one can have is the power to realize what you are going through and asking for help.
I didn’t want my teammates to think I was weak or making things up. I kept telling myself that it doesn’t matter what anyone says or thinks about my situation, I had to be true to myself for myself. It pushed me to get the help that I needed and help lift the biggest weight off my shoulders that day. I felt free and hopeful that I might have the slightest chance of saving myself.
Now is the time I tell you just how important it is to surround yourself with the right people, especially through a time like this. Words can never describe how thankful I am to have had the people that I did constantly check up on me, ask me if I needed anything and, most importantly, never give up on me and my journey.
To me, tennis means family. Tennis does not mean picking up a racket and hitting forehands and backhands. Because of this sport, I have gained sisters, friendships and unforgettable experiences that will last me a lifetime.
How could I ever give that up?
My recovery process has been nothing short of challenging. Every day I wake up and choose to keep fighting for a healthy life. I am gentle with myself in recovery. No matter how many times I “start over,” I try again and continuously build upon the times before. My bad days are simply full of nothing but gratitude. I have learned to appreciate the little things in life. I take my bad days and turn them into a selfless 24 hours of appreciating the people who have helped shape me into who I am. With that being said, I am still a college athlete battling an eating disorder, anxiety and depression more than half of the days out of the week.
You might still be wondering how exactly I do it? My secret is that there is no right or wrong answer.
My strength is what’s gotten me this far in life. My fight every single day has allowed me to never give up. I’ve learned how loved I am by everyone around me and how many people truly smile through my presence. I am grateful for that and I am grateful to be alive today to witness it. My life has truly been a roller-coaster full of the craziest ups and downs you can think of.
You can overcome anything you set your mind to. I never believed I was strong enough to do so until I had the best support system constantly telling me I was. Surround yourself with the people who uplift, motivate and inspire you in everyday life.
Mental health among college athletes can never be talked about enough. It’s real, it’s overwhelming and it’s destructive. My “why” of sharing my story is simple: to bring awareness to the parts of my journey that ultimately led me to who I am today. If I have the opportunity to help just one person in their journey, then all of this has been worth it. I didn’t come out on the other side by myself. I didn’t believe it was okay to not be okay. I truly thought everyone in my life was going to give up on me and I wish I had someone in a similar situation to tell me everything you have just read above.
Connecting someone else’s journey to your own is crucial. If my strength in getting the help I needed has the potential to help someone else find their own inner strength, then by all means, I will never stop sharing my story with others.
Keep fighting and keep smiling. If you feel like no one else has your back through times like this, just know I do and I always will.
Education and empowerment
Dukes draw lessons from Black Student-Athlete Summit
Dallas Jackson
Michael Johnson
Dallas Jackson of James Madison baseball and Michael Johnson of JMU football represented JMU Athletics at the 2021 Black Student-Athlete Summit, hosted virtually by the University of Texas, Jan. 6-8. The two Dukes were the first student-athletes from JMU to attend the summit, having been chosen for their extensive involvement in diversity and inclusion efforts within the athletics department.
What was the mission or the goals of the summit?
Jackson: It was based off two different tracks: a professional track and a student-athlete track. The professional track was more staff and sports administrators—ADs, coaches, academic advisors. For student-athletes, it was more ways of bettering yourself as a leader on and off the field. I think the biggest thing was just really building your toolkit and your leadership skills to bring back to whatever school that you attend.
Johnson: Yeah, their mission statement was to come together and engage in solution-focused dialogue around the challenges and opportunities associated with Black student-athletes.
What kinds of things is JMU doing, ahead of the curve, that are helpful and beneficial?
Johnson: For one, we are trying to get out there and talk about it—like the unity statement we released. Another thing is, we had a meeting with a few administrators and we talked about ways we could get that out there. We also mentioned that there could be a class that people could take to understand diversity and issues of race and Blackness and things like that, just to educate the community and the student body more. I feel like we are getting toward that, and there is evidence of that.
What do you think are the best or next opportunities for JMU Athletics to continue making progress and keep pushing forward in this area?
Jackson: We’ve already implemented some things. For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, each team did MLK quotes, and that was something that we got straight out of the Black Student-Athlete Summit and brought back. Honestly, it’s huge having the resources and the network to reach out to other student-athletes at other schools to help branch ideas, because I think all the ideas are not going to come from the administration.
As student-athletes, we see a lot of different things through social media and through other athletes at other schools, and I think that is where it starts. So I think it all comes down to us networking with other student-athletes within our conference and the NCAA and working with our administrators to bring new ideas to fruition.
Johnson: I think there should be a board of students. I don’t think faculty can see what we see. Being in the locker room, you talk to your peers about the things that go on, and there are issues that you encounter all the time that faculty just will not see being in their office and not being in the trenches.
Another thing is that I feel like there should be a course that helps educate everyone on diversity and inclusion. I do not know what that would specifically entail, but I feel like some type of direct education can only benefit.
It sounds like everything you guys are saying is about education and empowerment. Is that a good way of characterizing it?
Both [emphatically]: Yes.
What are you guys hoping your next steps are going to be as you help JMU Athletics get better in this area?
Jackson: For me, you just said it: educating. I know, with baseball, I am always looking to educate and help those guys if they have any questions about diversity and inclusion and with any ideas they might have to implement here at JMU through the [Student-Athlete Advisory Committee] or Dukes Lead or Dukes Let’s Talk. I’m open to all ideas, from any athlete.
Just keep the conversation going, keep educating yourself, and the biggest thing, which I have told many student-athletes, is do not be afraid to ask a question. You are not going to get jumped or yelled at for just asking a question. It shows that you are willing to educate yourself and step out on a limb and be uncomfortable.
Johnson: I guess I’m trying to reiterate where we’ve come from and, being that I am in [Student Coalition Against Racial Injustice] and helped found SCAR, education is one of the things that I preach and do, mostly on our social media and our GroupMe. I’ll occasionally talk about it with a few teammates and my roommates, especially, because they are white, and I try to educate them on certain things that they hear.
What would be your biggest recommendation for both student-athletes and staff who are pushing to get involved with this stuff more in the future and wanting to take steps to help with diversity and inclusion?
Jackson: Honestly, I’d say send student athletes to the Black Student-Athlete Summit—and it does not have to just be Black student-athletes! There were athletes of all races there, which was great to see. We encourage schools to send staff or a coach or anyone who’s in sports administration.
Johnson: I’d say keep doing the summit every year. I know it is a little expensive, but send two student-athletes and two faculty. I really feel like the faculty is the most important part from a university standpoint.
What have you guys learned and gained that you can take with you out into the world?
Jackson: For me, I’ve done a lot of things in my community back at home, and I have been involved here. The biggest thing I am bringing is my voice. I’m not afraid to voice my opinion in a good or a bad way. I think that having these uncomfortable conversations is what is going to make our world grow. If more people have a voice and voice how they feel and jump into the conversation with an open mind to hear other people and what they have to say, I feel that is where progression starts.
I also continue, to this day, to educate myself. Listening to different speakers or what my teammates have to say or how the way they grew up or where they come from affects things. I always need to see other perspectives like that.
Johnson: Yeah, pretty much the same thing for me. I just call mine “uncomfortable education.” My entire life, I’ve been in majority-white schools, white areas and things like that. My roommates are white, like I said, and we have conversations a lot. They are not afraid to talk to me about this stuff, and they will straight-up say what is on their minds and it will be uncomfortable sometimes, but we will just talk about it. That’s just the way it is at home, too. I’ve had to just stop certain people and it’s uncomfortable, but you just have to educate them because they won’t know otherwise. It’s just how they were raised and all they know, because they don’t understand it and haven’t lived it.
A banner year
2020-21 continues upward trajectory for JMU Athletics
BY KEVIN WARNER (’02), assistant athletic director for communications
The lacrosse Dukes won the 2021 CAA championship in an overtime thriller.
In a year extensively impacted by COVID-19 protocols, safety measures, reduced competitive schedules, attendance restrictions and unprecedented hurdles, James Madison responded with arguably its most comprehensively successful Athletics year in department history.
JMU matched a CAA all-time record of seven championships by one institution, highlighted by softball’s epic run to the semifinals of the Women’s College World Series. Football advanced to the FCS national semifinals while claiming a share of the league title. Swimming and diving and lacrosse each won their fourth consecutive CAA crowns. Men’s soccer claimed its third straight, women’s tennis its second in a row, softball its fifth in seven seasons, and women’s golf its first since 2013. The all-sport success reached even further as JMU also claimed regular-season titles in men’s basketball and field hockey plus a CAA South Division title in volleyball during the league’s one-year divisional format.
The Dukes also set a department record with a .682 combined winning percentage across all sports (162-65-5). That lifted JMU to a sixyear overall mark of .656, ranking among the top 15 of all NCAA Division I institutions. On the men’s side, JMU went 44-34-3 (.562) to go with a 98-31-2 (.756) mark on the women’s side.
Overall, eight teams achieved NCAA postseason competition (football, men’s soccer, lacrosse, softball, swimming and diving, women’s tennis, women’s golf and track & field). Four teams finished ranked in the top 20 of their sport’s final national polls—football third, softball fourth, lacrosse 12th and men’s soccer 18th.
The Learfield Director’s Cup, which measures departmental achievement in NCAA postseason competition, ranked JMU 67th in the nation. JMU led the CAA for the fourth consecutive year (no ranking in 2019-20 due to COVID-19) and had its best finish since 2000 and fourth-highest in department history. It was the fifth straight top-100 finish and 14th overall (more than 350 Division I schools) and the fifth time to rank in the top 75.
The individual accolades were just as exceptional as the team honors. Eleven student-athletes garnered All-America honors, highlighted by Odicci Alexander winning Softball America’s National Pitcher of the Year and D1Softball’s Woman of the Year. Alexander was also invited to the ESPYs awards event as one of four finalists for Best Female Athlete, College Sports. Nine James Madison coaches won CAA Coach of the Year, a record for any school in a single competitive year. Ten Dukes were named to some variation of CAA Player of the Year (Player, Defensive Player, Pitcher, etc.), and JMU tied a league record with seven Rookies of the Year.
Impressively, the landmark competitive success happened in conjunction with the department’s best cumulative GPA in at least 10 yearsat 3.181. JMU’s approximately 450 student-athletes combined to post 725 instances of a 3.0 GPA or better across the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters.
