MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
When the No. 12 James Madison University Dukes take on the No. 5 Oregon Ducks Saturday night in Eugene, Oregon in the first round of the College Football Playoffs, not many folks will be giving them much of a chance to advance to the second round.
That will suit the Dukes just fine, thank you, because not many folks gave them a chance to even be here to begin with. And I’m talking over 50 years ago when it all began.
No one believed, that is, except for James Madison.
There will be a lot of folks in the Cumberland area and who are from the Cumberland area who will be pulling like the devil for the Dukes, because a lot of them were part of the journey that has led to JMU playing on this stage.
The ascension of James Madison athletics has been nothing short of extraordinary, and this goes back over 60 years ago when the tiny school in Harrisonburg, Virginia was known as James Madison College and was for girls only.
Madison College officially became coeducational in 1966, when the Virginia General Assembly authorized men to enroll as full-time students, though men were initially admitted under the G.I. Bill for regular sessions.
In 1972, Madison football began at the NCAA Division III level, then the entire athletics program became Division I (1-AA) during the 1976-77 school year and the school became James Madison University in 1977.
Many of us around here remember very well when this happened, because many of our friends had decided to attend JMC and then JMU when it took it upon itself to make itself a player, not only in the world of academia, but in the world of collegiate athletics.
When the Dukes began to take serious strides in building their football program, they turned to football assistant coach Ellis Wisler of Ellerslie and a former player and graduate of Allegany High School.
Wisler played football at George Washington University where he also received a Masters degree and was drafted by Vince Lombardi to play for the Green Bay Packers. After an injury, he turned to coaching at the University of Maryland and the farm Club 4 of the Redskins: the Buckskins.
He was head coach at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington until he joined Madison College’s football team in 1972 as defensive coordinator. He made many three-hour drives from Harrisonburg to Cumberland to get players who could facilitate the school’s desired growth, and he got a lot of them.
With apologies to those whose names have escaped me in the last 50 years, players such as Allegany’s Dave Sensabaugh, Fort Hill’s Shane Hast, Terry Hansrote, Loren Payne, Mike Hast, Kevin Royce, Todd Martin, Tom Stallings, Harry Keller, Donnie Nau (team trainer), Beall’s great Bryon Arnone and many more from the area got the Dukes train rolling, going to Madison for the school’s first head football coach Challace McMillin, who coached Madison from 1972 to 1984, compiling a 67-60-2 record.
The Madison football program, the Madison athletic department and the school took off and continued to grow through the years into an institute that isn’t even recognizable anymore for anyone who was last there 50 years ago to visit high school friends.
The success rate athletically has steadily grown as the men’s basketball team, once coached by the great Lefty Driesell, has made the NCAA Tournament six times with March Madness wins over Georgetown, Ohio State, West Virginia and Wisconsin, while the baseball program, which helped produce Mount Savage High second baseman Mike Mathews, one of greatest sportswriters, has long been one of the best baseball programs in the country.
The football team won FCS championships in 2004 under head coach Mickey Matthews and 2016 under head coach Mike Houston.
Matt Ruhle, now the head coach at Nebraska, is a former JMU head coach as is Curt Cignetti, a man you’ve likely heard a lot about lately, as he is the head coach of the No. 1-ranked Indiana Hoosiers, while his successor, Bob Chesney took over as the UCLA head coach just a couple of weeks ago.
Former Florida Gators Billy Napier is the current Madison head coach, returning to the Sun Belt Conference where he had success at Louisiana.
Every football coach in James Madison program history holds a winning record as the Dukes have transitioned from the Coastal Athletic Association in Division I in 2022 to the Sun Belt Conference in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
Madison has had a slew of NFL players in its brief but proud history, including Washington Redskins Super Bowl champion Gary Clark, Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood (God love him) and Hall of Famer Charles Haley.
For those of us who hadn’t seen it with our own eyes, it would be impossible to believe. Cute, quaint and tiny Madison College is now in the hunt for a national championship with all of the big dogs.
In just 50 years it has been a remarkable standard of designed and determined growth – more like an explosion – to national prominence. James Madison has never been bashful about reaching high. And look at them now.
None of this is an accident.
James Madison University alumni, particularly those folks, many of them our friends from the Cumberland area, who were there and helped to get this all started are devoutly loyal and proud. No one loves their school more than James Madison folks love theirs.
It is one of the truest examples of the American success story and, likely, before James Madison University is finished, the American dream come true.
It is a beautiful thing to see.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communicat…ions. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT