A May 8, 1969 article interviewed Rutgers athletes about the attitude of taking football and sports up to a higher level, “… our whole athletic department is full of men who are contented with second class and keeping Rutgers at the level with small private schools like Lehigh, Lafayette and Colgate,” chimed in one of the frustrated athletes. “It’s good for some of the young coaches like Jim Valvano to get out on their own, and it will only be time before we lose other good coaches like (swimming coach Frank) Elm, basketball coach Bill Foster and Frank Burns of the football team because of our stuffy policies.”
55 Years Ago Today in Rutgers Football History - They Have Eyes but Cannot See
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And 3 years later, President Bloustein decides we should go "bigger time" in football. His untimely death prevented us from progressing further along IMO.
Bloustein was the last Rutgers president who had any standing in this state and could get things done.
Thank you for that video. I had not seen it before.
I remember attending a Rutgers football game back in my freshman year. After the game, I walked up the bleachers to leave and saw President Bloustein sitting alone in the top row while everyone left. I felt a little bad that no one approached him or said hello. How often can you engage your University president on a casual basis?
I feel even more bad now that I was one of them.
Ed Bloustein on Paul Robeson and the Hall of Fame:
A change at the top did not alter the opinion that the man Walter Camp declared was the “greatest defensive end to trod the gridiron” shouldn’t be kept out of the Hall of Fame. In the September 24, 1975 Targum, Rutgers president Ed Bloustein said, “We don’t ask our football players what their political affiliations are and I don’t think it should be asked when it comes to being considered for the college football Hall of Fame… his championship of the common man made him one of the most controversial figures of our time. His espousal of racial equality was very, very unpopular at the time. But he was also one of the greatest football players in the nation in addition to being a great scholar-athlete and a great artist… Mr. Robeson has told me, through his son, there is no single honor he misses more than membership in the Hall of Fame.”
Robeson died in January of 1976. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995.
