Tradition & Community Highlights Mount Union Football Game Day

As one fan said–bundled up under layers of purple and from under a knit hat pulled down to his eyebrows–”players play [Division III football] because they truly love it.”

The same goes for fans of Division III football, willing to brave temperatures near 10º and whipping winds on the Saturday before Christmas.

There’s no students in the stands because they all went home for the holiday. There’s no marching band on the field, for the same reason. This deep in December, Mount Union football is both at its most bare and its most familiar. Alliance, Ohio, houses one of the most dominant football power houses at any level. Since 1993, the Purple Raiders clinched 22 spots in a national championship game and won 13 of them. On this Saturday, they found spot 23.

You won’t find the pomp of a pregame parade of Penn State or the deafening roar of LSU Tiger Stadium here. But you will find unbridled passion for college football and a connectiveness not found anywhere else. You’ll find Mount Union football.

Sights Of A Mount Union Game Day

A Holiday Tradition

Just days before Christmas, long after students departed after the semester, Mount Union returned home to host Johns Hopkins with a spot in the D-III National Championship (Stagg Bowl) on the line. It’s almost a holiday tradition at this point, with the number of semifinals and deep playoff runs Mount’s made since 1990. Parents of players, diehard alumni, and local fans have this Saturday annually blocked off for an expected home playoff game.

The Gulling Lot–located just steps away from Kehres Stadium’s gate–filled up with eager tailgaters before the sun rose, wind chills near zero degrees be damned. Three particular lots comprise the artery of the group, mostly made up of the aforementioned player parents and alumni.

Player parents are easy to spot. Fathers sport purple hard hats with the number of their sons on the side and anywhere between a few and a few dozen helmet award stickers (the same ones used on the player helmets). The Hard Hat Mafia, as they’re known, earn helmet awards for attending games. In the spirit of the season, players’ mothers wore Santa hats with their sons’ numbers on them.

The Old Crow

About 30 minutes before kickoff, the entirety of the Gulling Lot converges on one tent in particular. There, tailgaters listen to its organizer on a microphone sharing a pump-up speech about how Mount will win today’s game interwoven with allegories of crows. Tailgaters listen on to the gospel of the Purple Raiders, an apt scene for a private Methodist university.

“Young crows learn to fly,” the MC ushers to the younger crowd and to me (who he nudged at having not recognized – a testament to how connected this community is), “you have to take it slow.”

He continues along the story before concluding with, “And us old crows will teach the young to fly,” before a combination of caws and pseudo-chicken dance flaps of his elbows. Then the group toasts to the Purple Raiders and it’s a shot of Old Crow whiskey, down the hatch.

I was told it’s a rite of passage.

Special thank you to the Hard Hat Mafia and Purple Suits for their warm hospitality!

Mount Union 45, Johns Hopkins 37

Kehres Stadium was built back in 1913 and, aside from a 2002 renovation, it’s remained relatively unchanged. The home stands sit under a massive overhang, handy for an afternoon like this. Few college football venues in the country really capture the original structure as well as this. Football as it once was.

Johns Hopkins has played football since 1881. The Blue Jays were in search of a chance at the first national championship in program history. All that stood between them and the title game was Mount Union, owner of 13 national championship banners of its own. Coming into the game, Mount also owned a 103-18 NCAA Playoff record (.851). The bottom line is: Mount’s been here before.

That showed this afternoon, as the Purple Raiders turned a 17-13 halftime lead into a thrilling 45-37 victory highlighted by huge plays on late downs, keeping arm’s distance just about all game long. They went 5-for-5 on fourth down. The offensive line paved the way for six rushing touchdowns. Mount simply bleeds winning culture.

Snow kicked up in the fourth quarter, turning Kehres Stadium into a snow globe as fans cheered and celebrated a trip to Houston. Players and families celebrated the victory on the snow-covered turf as the clock hit 0:00.

But through the celebrations, players echoed another reminder of the expectations here: “Job’s not done.”

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