Warhawks head West on road to national championship
Released: November 29, 2005
Students cheer the Warhwawks to 34-7 victory
over St. John's.
It certainly doesn’t get any easier for the undefeated Warhawks. Next up is a trip to McMinnville, Ore., to take on defending national champion and top-ranked Linfield College on Saturday, Dec. 3 in Division III quarterfinal action.
The win over St. John’s College sent Warhawk fans scurrying to the Internet to find the best ticket deals to the city of just under 30,000 people, located 45 minutes southwest of Portland.
While the No. 1 team in the county awaits the 12-0 UW-Whitewater football team, a memory of last weekend’s 34-7 victory over St. Johns is still fresh in Warhawk fan’s memories.
UW-Whitewater head coach Bob Berezowitz called the win over the Johnnies, “the greatest win in Warhawk football history.” The veteran head coach should know as he was an All-American quarterback for Whitewater in 1966 when the Warhawks traveled to Tulsa, Okla., to play Waynesburg, Penn., in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) national championship game.
According to newspaper accounts, an estimated 2,500 Warhawk fans made the trek to Tulsa in November 1966 to cheer on the Warhawks in what has been the only national championship football game played in school history. The road to the 1966 NAIA Championship game was much shorter than it is in 2005. The Warhawks needed just one playoff win to earn a berth in the national title game. Today, it takes five postseason victories to earn the title.
Winning a national championship is not an everyday occurrence for NCAA Division III athletic teams. 2005 has been an exceptionally good year for UW-Whitewater teams. Last spring, the Warhawk baseball team captured the program’s first national championship. Earlier this month, the UW-Whitewater volleyball team won a second national title to go along with its 2002 national championship captured on its home court in Williams Center.
- Tom Pattison,pattisot@uww.edu
