By Ryan Tipps
D3football.com

They broke the ice 15 years ago, and now they get chills seeing how far Mount Union has come.

"We did win the first one, obviously, and what the guys have done since then is just absolutely unbelievable," said Jim Ballard, a record-setting passer from the 1993 squad, the first in a line of nine Mount Union teams to win the Division III national championship.

Ballard and a few other members from that storied team get together in Alliance, Ohio, to see Mount Union through the playoffs, to see a team that's on a path toward the Stagg Bowl and evolving year after year.

"We get together whenever we can, whatever playoff game we can," Ballard said. "It's usually a handful of guys who are always around and always keep in touch. And if we don't hook up at the games, it's one of those things where we still talk, try to get together, go to dinner. Just hang out a little bit."

Most of the guys live close by (Ballard is just down the road in North Canton), and though work and other obligations keep people away at times, it can often be counted on that Ballard, tight end Mike Furcolow, wide receiver Ed Bubonics, offensive lineman Matt Johnson and others will reunite at the stadium. They stand along the fence, cheer on the Purple Raiders and relive among themselves some of the memorable moments of the early '90s.

They talk often about camaraderie, Furcolow said. "It's not as much the winning as much as the process of getting there, the friendships you develop. Things that you learned about how the program worked, how that affects the rest of your life. Things that we've experienced in business and management and different things in that perspective."

And they talk about their time on the field. Two games in particular are reminisced about often. In 1992, MUC faced the frigid Wisconsin weather, as well as eventual national UW-La Crosse, in the national semifinals.

"It was literally 30 below zero with the wind chill," Ballard recalls. "A lot of us got hurt. One buddy blew out a knee. Had we won that game and played in the national championship, I don't know how many of us would have been able to play. We just talk about how ridiculously cold it was."

Jim Ballard holds the inaugural Gagliardi Trophy, with John Gagliardi.

More proudly, they look back at the Purple Raiders' first championship win, which came against a Rowan team that was perceived to be bigger, faster and stronger. On that day, the result of the game wasn't based on perceptions.

Ballard remembers his opponents vividly. Rowan "had 11 Division I transfers on their team. … They were huge; their receivers were 6-3, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, and they were all about 200 pounds. They were big, to say the least."

Behind two fourth-quarter drives, Mount Union came out ahead that year 34-24, helping to set the tone for the team in years to come.

"We get credited with starting the whole thing and this and that, but there were teams before that made the playoffs," Ballard said. "And for a while, we couldn't get past Dayton, and Dayton at the time was the big dog, and my junior year we ended up playing them and beating them. That was actually the last time that they were Division III, was '92. And we like to say that we bounced them out."

Yet for today's Mount Union squad, in Ballard's eyes, things are not like they were back then.

"We talk about how much we'd almost hate to play for them now, because if you don't win the national championship or blow people out by 50, it's like, what's wrong with you, you guys aren't very good," he said. "The expectations are just so, so high. There's a lot of pressure. ... For us to do it when we did, there was pressure, but not like there is now."

The large margins of victory are why Ballard and the others typically get together in the playoffs only. During the regular season, "you're there for 10 minutes and it's over. They beat people down pretty much. They playoffs are just [more] fun."

There are also lessons that can be seen when the team that they love so much falls short, as happened in Alliance in December 2004, when Mary Hardin-Baylor pulled out a 38-35 victory in the national semifinals.

"It was somewhat disappointing" to see MUC lose, Furcolow said, "but it was also good from the perspective that it keeps everything in perspective. You're not always as good as you think you are; you're not always as bad as you think you are."

With the team in front of them, with the legacy that they helped build, being in Mount Union Stadium is more than watching the pursuit of another Walnut and Bronze trophy.

"It's brought back memories every time we watch," Furcolow notes. "It's good to get together with the guys we played with and talk about the bonds we have together and to see other people do the same thing."

For Ballard, "The game is almost secondary. We get together obviously because it's a common place, we all used to play there, but it's just a way for us to stay close to Mount and hang out."