When Don Waful received the invitation to his friend Roger’s wedding, he was furious. Roger, who entered the World War II draft and served with Waful, had elected to get married on Nov. 17, 1945, the same day as Syracuse’s season finale against Colgate, SU’s most bitter rival.

Waful had been looking forward to his first SU-Colgate game since he entered the Army in 1941 and served overseas until 1945. He pleaded with Roger to move the wedding to a Sunday.

“I said ‘Roger you son of a b*tch,’” Waful remembered telling Roger at the time, “‘you can’t do this.’”

He attended Roger’s wedding in New York City and missed SU’s 7-6 loss to the Raiders. Since then, Waful has only missed two more games over the course of the next 72 years, which he didn’t attend for military reunions.

Now, at age 102, one of Syracuse’s oldest-living alumni and its longest-tenured football fan is getting ready to watch No. 20 Syracuse (9-3, 6-2 Atlantic Coast) finally return to its former glory ahead of its matchup in the Camping World Bowl with No. 16 West Virginia.

A lifelong Syracuse resident, Waful has lived in Syracuse since he was 1. In 1933, Waful enrolled at Syracuse University and attended every single game during his four years of undergraduate work, followed by another year as a graduate student at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

In his five years at Syracuse, the Orange mustered just five points against rival Colgate in their annual meetings — a field goal and a safety. During his senior year, Syracuse lost to Baldwin-Wallace College, renamed to Baldwin Wallace University in 2012. Waful wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of it.

“That was hard to take,” Waful said. “I’ve always joked that Baldwin won the first half, and Wallace won the second half.”

Don Waful checks his wrist watch. Everything he owns carries its own history. Alexandra Moreo | Senior Staff Photographer

He remembers nearly every game from the 1930s and tells the stories of Syracuse athletes from those days long-forgotten in the shadow of the historical seasons that followed. Waful recalls the heartbreak he experienced when he couldn’t attend SU’s game against Northwestern in 1940 because he had to work for United Way that Saturday.

He loves telling the story of the “reverse center,” which Syracuse used during the 1941 season. Instead of having the center line up facing the opposing team, the center faced the backfield, with his rear to his opponent. Waful laughed in the Cornell stands in Ithaca as Big Red head coach Carl Snavely “went bananas” after SU’s first snap. He chuckles even harder now remembering the scene.

Waful can even point out specific games in 1942 and 1944, which he missed while a prisoner of war in Europe. SU disbanded its football team in 1943, but Waful didn’t mind. Those were just four less missed home games on his lifelong track record.

When Waful settled back in Syracuse in 1945 with his wife Cassie, a nurse who he served with in WWII, he worked as an insurance salesman at The Bruns Insurance Agency. He represented former SU Chancellor William Tolley and former SU head coach Ben Schwartzwalder, who remains the only coach at SU to win a national championship. His boss, Albert C. Deisseroth, gave Waful four season tickets for SU football every year. Deisseroth said to bring whomever Waful wanted.

He and Cassie had two sons, and the three of them became Waful’s guests to every game. They brought an old GI blanket from the war that Cassie rescued, Waful said. If it was cold, all four would huddle close and wrap themselves in the blanket. If it was warm, they used it as extra padding on their seats.

Waful watched many games where Syracuse had beaten the odds: it had no right toppling Nebraska in 1984, he said. When Michael Owens ran around the left side on the two-point conversion against West Virginia in 1987, Waful was sitting so close, he said he could’ve reached out and touched him.

SU’s win over Clemson in 2017 proved current head coach Dino Babers’ potential to Waful, who has seen SU rise and fall throughout his entire life. But after that victory, Syracuse failed to win another game last season, and the Orange were pegged to finish last in the ACC this season. Many thought the Orange had no right being ranked where they are, but Babers led them to their best season since 2001.

Waful’s favorite game in SU history wasn’t a national championship, or the 1987 win against West Virginia, or 1984 against Nebraska, or 2017 against Clemson, although those make up the rest of the top five, he said. His favorite game in Syracuse history came in 1938 against Cornell, back in Archbold Stadium.

“We were ordinary. Very ordinary,” Waful said. “We had no right to be on the same field as Cornell.”

Don Waful missed only three home games since he became a fan of Syracuse football as a student at SU in 1933. Alexandra Moreo | Senior Staff Photographer

Cornell was one of the best teams in the nation, finishing the season at No. 12. Meanwhile, Syracuse was just two years removed from that blowout defeat to Baldwin-Wallace. But on the back of quarterback Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, Syracuse triumphed over the Big Red, 19-17, to move to No. 10 in the country, its lone ranking of the season.

“You can mark down, in my football history at Syracuse, that game against Cornell in 1938 was probably the greatest game I’ve seen,” Waful said. “That was a headline story in New York.”

For many years, Syracuse struggled to beat its rivals at home. Colgate dominated its central New York rivalry in Syracuse, where the two faced off every year after 1897. The matchup, which began in 1891, rivaled Army and Navy at the time, Waful said. And from Waful’s first game in 1932 until he returned from WWII, Syracuse won just three times. But following his return in 1945, SU took control of the series.

In 1961, Syracuse dismantled Colgate 51-8, its 11th win in a row against the Raiders. Following the crushing defeat, Colgate terminated its football contract with Syracuse, ending one of the most famous rivalries in college football. After the announcement, Tolley was irate, Waful said, and bashed the Raiders the next time he and Waful met.

“‘Mediocrity is easy enough to obtain without making it your objective,’” Waful remembers the chancellor saying. “(Terminating the deal) blew Chancellor Tolley’s mind.”

As he told the story, he gloated about the feats of Jim Brown — who Waful calls “Jimmy” — against Colgate, especially in 1956, when Brown scored a then-NCAA-record 43 points en route to a 61-7 shellacking.

Syracuse and Colgate have only played five times since that fabled game in 1961. Tickets are no longer $3.30 like they were during Waful’s time at Syracuse — the Colgate game was the most expensive game, he said — and he no longer has those four season tickets he once used from his insurance company. He buys two tickets for every game of the season so that a friend can help bring him to the game after Waful gave up driving in the last two years. The tickets, at $37.50, are pricier than before, but he loves giving back to SU.

Waful has never missed a game at the Carrier Dome, and doesn’t plan on it anytime soon. Waful said Pete Sala, Syracuse’s vice president and chief facilities officer, promised to bring Waful to and from every game so that he never misses one.

Don Waful’s wall is lined with Syracuse memorabilia. Alexandra Moreo | Senior Staff Photographer

On a late-November afternoon, Waful’s house is filled with memorabilia of three different varieties: family, music and pictures of Syracuse. Of “ol” Archbold Stadium, as he always calls it, the Carrier Dome and the turf, former players and former coaches. Little “S” trinkets line his stairs, and he has a pillow with a picture of family friends surrounded by an orange and blue background.

He played a song, an album that the rest of the Syracuse alumni choir and him put together for RC-Victor. The words blast out from the stereo, and a few are recognizable: the alma mater, the SU fight song. But there was a third one. Waful closed his eyes and tapped his right foot and hand along with the beat, singing quietly.

“To hell with Pennsylvania, to hell with Cornell too, to hell with every college that ever had a clue, and if we’re going to heaven, we’re yelling Syracuse, and if I’m not so fortunate, then damn it, what’s the use.”

The song ended, he opened his eyes wide and looked up.

“Now,” Waful said, “that’s real music.”

Published on December 20, 2018 at 3:31 pm

Contact Matt: mdliberm@syr.edu