The year was 1957. Curbliner trolleys ran on overhead cables down University Avenue; residence halls were still being built; there was a campus-wide curfew; and the Drake football team was enjoying an undefeated season. The Bulldogs were having one of their most successful seasons in years – one that would lead them to the play in the 1958 Sun Bowl on New Year's Day. Now, more than 50 years later, during Drake's Homecoming weekend, the 1957 Bulldogs came back to reminisce and celebrate their team.
“There were quite a few of us that came together our freshman year,” Roger LaBrasca said. LaBrasca was a key element in Drake's standout season as the quarterback and captain for the 1957 team. “We were on scholarship and we played Division I, and I think the success came from the fact that the ones that stuck together were kind of a hard core, and we went all the way through our senior year, and that's why we were pretty good the last year.”
As a small team competing against larger schools across the nation, Drake had long been the underdog in college football. But in 1957, the Bulldogs came out strong and prevailed against bigger schools, making them a contender for the Sun Bowl, one of the most prestigious bowl games in the sport at the time. In the first half of the season, head coach Warren Gaer received a questionnaire inquiring about interest in participating in the Sun Bowl.
“I filled it out and mailed it back,” Gaer said in a Des Moines Register article from that year. “But we won't talk about any bowl bids until after we win a few games. Like Iowa State for instance.”
The Bulldogs did just that. Drake came away with one of the biggest upsets of the 1957 season with a shutout win over Iowa State at Drake's Homecoming game. That Drake vs. Iowa State game was always a fan favorite, drawing crowds of as many as 15,000 people to the game. Iowa State was favored by 21 points, but that only motivated the Bulldogs to fight harder.
“We shut them out! Twenty to nothing.” LaBrasca said. As he recalled the game, it was as if he was back out on the field. “But that was probably my best game, all of our best game, in our four years. We played a very, very, very good game and we played a lot smarter than they did.”
Ending the season with a 7-1 record, the Bulldogs' season came to a close. Or so they thought. Within a couple weeks of Drake's season-ending win over West Texas State, Coach Gaer received a phone call officially inviting Drake to El Paso, Texas, to play in the Sun Bowl. Before they knew it, the Bulldogs were back to practice, preparing for their biggest game yet.
Jay Cookman, then a sophomore reserve, was excited simply to be a part of the team. Now, Cookman has taken the reins of planning this past weekend's reunion. Thanks to Cookman's leadership, he and his teammates reunited for dinner, spend the weekend together in a hotel for the weekend and were recognized at halftime of the Drake vs. Jacksonville homecoming game on Saturday. Proudly wearing his custom-made Sun Bowl hat, Cookman recalled the pride he felt to be a part of such a successful team and to share in such an experience.
“Just to be a part of that, and then here we are fifty five years later and I'm just as much a part of that group,” he said. “And I was just a lowly reserve that year when I played, and most of them that are coming were starters, so just to still be associated with that and be a part of that has been a joy.”
The team boarded a train headed for El Paso on Christmas day in 1957. The nearly 1,200-mile trip led to experiences that they now fondly look back on.
Then game day arrived. January 1, 1958.
“Doctor Gaer told us when we were in the locker room before we went out for the Sun Bowl, he said 'Just remember guys, fifty years from now you all played 60 minutes and nobody knows a difference,'” Cookman recalled.
The Bulldogs ended up falling in a 34-20 loss against Louisville, but the excitement of being in a bowl game trumped any negative feelings. The camaraderie of the team and the success they had achieved was enough.
“I would say I don't know if there's any highlight except senior year, but that all was culminated by everything that we did,” LaBrasca said. “I guess that last year was a good memory, we had all kinds of memories of games before that, but just leading up to that final climactic thing was really great.”
To this day, the teammates remain close. Some have been in each other's weddings, some send letters to keep in touch, and some, sadly, have passed away. But this past weekend, the Bulldogs reunited one more time, to remember the team that they once were – and the team that they still are.
Story by Elizabeth Robinson - Drake Athletic Communications
