On a gray, murky Friday morning in Fayetteville, N.Y., Ger Schwedes left his home and began the 10-mile drive up to Syracuse to see old football teammates. He had not seen some of these men in 50 years, some he would never see again.

As he drove, Schwedes passed the Carrier Dome, which was built on the foundation of Archbold Stadium. He had once played there, on the soil and grass that now lay buried. And there, with the men he would soon see, Schwedes captained the team that won Syracuse University’s only national championship for football.

But that was a half-century ago, and Schwedes, 71, had since aged. His hair had turned white, his broad shoulders had hunched and his voice, which once reminded men of the bond they shared, had deepened.

And it had cracked.

‘We’re all getting older,’ Schwedes said. ‘Most of us are in our early seventies. Who knows what the good Lord’s got in store for us next year, or the year after that or 10 years from now? Who knows?’

The captain did not want to think about the inevitable. He did not want to think about how time had separated and spread his teammates across 19 states, how time took 10 of his teammates away. Time was relentless, and he knew it.

Schwedes, halfback of the 1959 SU football team, understood that time would make this reunion more difficult. It was almost a miracle 44 teammates would return, he said, for the anniversary reunion held Friday and Saturday. Schwedes feared this many would never return for a reunion again.

But he would not tell his teammates.

‘No,’ Schwedes said. ‘We don’t think about it. No. We don’t ever think this is going to be our last. We’re going to keep doing this.’

And the captain made sure of it.

Before the ride north, before the reunion banquet and before he and his team were honored on the Carrier Dome field, Schwedes spent more than six months bringing his teammates together. He spent last March compiling a directory of the team so he could call each player and remind him.

‘I’ve got a database of where everybody is,’ Schwedes said. ‘who their wife is and whether they’re divorced, their addresses, their telephone numbers and their e-mail addresses.’

When, two weeks ago, former All-American offensive lineman Roger Davis felt unsure of whether to return, Schwedes had him on a three-way phone call with himself and former tackle Maury Youmans.

‘They said how much work they were doing,’ Davis recalled. ‘And when they called me then, I said I was coming for sure.’

Schwedes booked 61 hotel rooms at the Embassy Suites Hotel in East Syracuse a few months back and filled all of them with former teammates, their wives, their children and grandchildren for this first weekend of October.

And Schwedes was one of the first to arrive.

He stocked the hospitality suite with Labatts, Johnnie Walker and Bombay so his team could remember times spent together over alcohol and Chex Mix. Times like those spent at the Clover Club on Adams Street, where the team had once brought dates, danced and drank together.

His team recalled old football games, told stories with expletives, as if everyone was standing in the locker room again.

Remember the play where everyone ran right and running back Ernie Davis would run to left, all on his own? Remember when Schwedes took the place of a punter on fourth down, and then tossed a first down?

‘I feel like a college kid, again,’ former center David Appelhoff said.

They were back.

And how proud Schwedes sounded later that night at the chandelier-lit ballroom within the Turning Stone Resort and Casino, where he waited at the podium.

There, he spoke on behalf of the team upon receiving the ‘Team of Distinction’ award at the 45th annual LetterWinner of Distinction awards banquet, the ceremony for SU Athletic’s ‘hall of fame.’

He listed the careers of his teammates like a father with too many successful son: ‘One beloved Heisman trophy winner, three accountants, two restaurateurs, two municipal executives, two high school superintendents, two college deans, 10 high school and college football coaches, unfortunately three lawyers, two dentists, two resource managers, a championship ring designer, a banker, a publisher, a CIA agent, a resort owner.’

‘If we were good on the gridiron,’ Schwedes said in his speech, ‘we would like to believe that we were also successful in life.’

But then, he let reality slip.

‘This journey,’ the captain said, ‘is, well, coming to a slow halt.’

And for just that second, you could hear the sound of the wait staff sneakers swish against the carpet. For a moment, there was silence; the feeling of despair, before hands clapped and applause broke out.

When they left the casino, it was raining.

There was a pale sun over Syracuse the next morning, when Schwedes arranged three charter buses to drive his teammates and their families to the Carrier Dome. It was a Saturday, it was game day.

The first bus slowed to stop on a hill and the 44 men could see the school where they had left blonde, black and brown-haired some years ago.

Davis, who did come at the last minute, saw where the bus had parked. It was before the steps of the Hall of Languages where he once studied.

At the back, Dick Feidler, a former lineman, kept track of his seven grandchildren – his legacy. But he also wondered what it would be like if former tackle Eugene Grabosky and fullback Richard Reimer were here, Feidler said, whether the reunion would be the same.

‘They had passed away,’ he said.

The ones who were there sat in the west end of the Dome, opposite of the SU bench. They wore white polos and snap-back caps, with the logo ‘1959.’ They watched as South Florida defeated their alma mater.

When the time came, with 7:37 minutes left in the second quarter, Schwedes stood up with a draft beer in his right hand and pointed left, toward the stairs that would take his team down to the Dome’s field.

The walk was short, teammates said. Schwedes’ speech was swift. He thanked the fans. He thanked the university. He thanked his teammates.

But he would not tell the crowd that this appearance might be the last. No. He could not admit that to the crowd that: ‘This could be our last hurrah.’

He could not tell them, because it would be too hard.

Schwedes was attached to this team, would always wear his 1959 championship ring on his wedding finger everywhere he went. It was, in part, because Schwedes does not own a wedding ring, though he is married. He has no need for one, he said.

But there was bliss in that his team would meet again, he said. They meet every year, but never plan more than one year in advance.

‘We’re going to have another reunion next year in South Florida and probably the year after that,’ Schwedes said, but he knew that some of his teammates would be missing. ‘Maybe 20 or 30 of us will be back with our wives.’

Time makes us age, Schwedes learned; time takes a toll.

‘I’m not sure whether I’ll see some of these teammates again,’ he said.

But when the end arrived, he would not say good-byes. Not now, not ever.

‘No,’ Schwedes said, on his parting words. ‘It’ll be, ‘See you next year in South Florida.”

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on October 6, 2009 at 12:00 pm