Over its 41-year history as a National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) member, the Stony Brook football team has gone through its fair share of ups and downs. Most notably, it has appeared in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs four times, won five conference championships, cycled through three head coaches and, last season, suffered a winless season. This led to the firing of longtime coach Chuck Priore and the hiring of the second-youngest Division I head coach in the nation, 32-year-old Billy Cosh.

Despite recent struggles — which have seen the Seawolves win just five of their last 25 games — the football program remains the cornerstone of Stony Brook Athletics. The enduring popularity of the sport nationwide also ensures that it will likely continue to be a central pillar of the University’s sports culture in the near future; one that, despite it currently lacking, still exists.

However, football, and potentially sports as a whole, might not have any significance at Stony Brook without the foundational efforts of its football club team — then known as the Patriots. The memorable team will be honored at halftime of the Oct. 5 game against Villanova for its 50th anniversary.

To illustrate the influence of the 1974 Patriots, consider that Stony Brook football went from being disbanded in 1973 to being named the top club team in the nation by 1975. That year, the team advanced to the national championship game, where it ultimately fell short of victory. Nonetheless, it paved the way for Stony Brook football to transition from a club team to a Division III program just eight years later. 

The players from those teams have such compelling stories and distinctive experiences that they could inspire an entire film series. From the Benedict Saloon — a bar established by the players in the still-active Benedict Hall — to juggling football, academics and security guard shifts, the uniqueness of the program back then is beyond description.

Despite the array of memories, one constant for everyone involved in the football team’s resurgence was their unwavering passion.

“Every guy on that team was probably the star of their high school and was a really good athlete,” Bruce Schoenberg, a starting cornerback on the 1974 and 1975 squads, said. “Just not Division I material. Nobody was recruiting them to go to their college to play football. And yet, we got out of high school, going to college and we still had that competitive urge to play. We loved the sport, we loved the game.”

The Patriots were not part of the NCAA system; they did not compete in Division I, II or III. Instead — even though they did not see themselves as one — they were a club team, much like the Stony Brook hockey team today. Without any formal affiliation to a university athletic program, they managed all aspects of their operations independently.

Following a devastating 69-6 loss to Albany in 1973, a defeat marked by numerous player injuries, Stony Brook football was discontinued. The decision was influenced by the program’s high cost relative to the student government’s — then called the Student Polity Association — budget, which was prone to reallocating funds from clubs. 

After dominating Stony Brook’s intramural leagues with their superior talent, the Patriots players decided it was time to regroup. Before moving forward, though, they had to launch a campaign to secure the reinstatement of their program.

“When we were looking to restart the team, we internally had meetings and said, ‘We have to go to Polity, we have to make a coherent pitch to get them to fund us and then we have to show them a business plan as to why it’s a good investment,’” Schoenberg said.

The players’ first priority was finding a head coach, a task they entrusted to a committee they had formed. Among two final candidates, Fred Kemp — “the right man at the right time,” according to Schoenberg — was chosen.

Through his ownership of a construction company, Kemp obtained bleachers and other essential equipment from the soon-to-be-defunct Seton Hall Preparatory School football program at no cost. Meanwhile, the players worked to create a field. As John Quinn — a star wide receiver on the 1974 and 1975 teams and former sports editor of The Statesman — put it, “It was [Kemp’s] flatbed truck and our manual labor.”

After a successful first year with new coaching and a refreshed mentality — during which the Patriots finished 6-2 with both losses being closely contested — the players’ hard work culminated in a remarkable 1975 season.

“The [19]75 season was a natural progression of, ‘Let’s go, we’re going to win,’” Quinn said. “You get certain games where it’s a real game, it’s like, fourth quarter, they got the ball, they can win the game, we have to stop them. We would win those games. Then, we had these other games where, traditionally, the opponent would be a regular opponent, but they might be having a down year. We obliterated them; we would win 50-0.”

When Stony Brook took down Norwalk during that campaign, it was ranked number one in the country among club teams. 

“We had developed a winning culture,” Quinn said. “We had not only turned it around, but we were looking full speed ahead. We had taken it to the moon, which [is] where it had to be. That leap from club to Division III, that’s a big leap.”

The following week, the Patriots faced a challenging matchup against St. John’s, a team they had lost to the previous year. Unfortunately for them, a repeat transpired in an even uglier fashion. Stony Brook was defeated 17-0 and its national championship aspirations were surely over. 

Except they were not. 

The National Club Sports Association, the governing body for collegiate club athletics, stamped the number two ranking on the Patriots, meaning they would face the number one ranked Westchester Community College in the national championship game.

“We were 8-1 and St. John’s was 7-2, and they picked us for the championship game,” Quinn said while laughing.

However, a fairy-tale ending was not in the cards for the group, as the Patriots fell 28-8 in the national championship game.

Despite not securing a title themselves, the players and coaches from Stony Brook’s 1975 football team can take pride in having cracked the window for the program’s aforementioned future successes. Additionally — to encapsulate the impact the team had on its players — Glenn Dubin and the late Kevin Kehoe, two players from those teams, have donated millions to the program.

“When we brought that team back in [19]74, we weren’t sitting around thinking, ‘Someday we’ll be Division III,’” Quinn said. “We were fighting to keep the game alive.”