The Owls of Fall

For the first time in its 154-year history, William Woods is represented on the gridiron as the Owl football team makes its debut

For decades, dreamers and doers have headed to the cornfields of Iowa to find their dreams.

"If you build it, they will come" said the line from the storied movie.

On the last Thursday in August of 2024, after a year of building its own field and program from scratch, a group of WWU coaches and student-athletes did just that - they came to Oskaloosa, Iowa to face William Penn University and in doing so realized something that was once but a dream - intercollegiate football at William Woods University, for the first time in its 154-year history.

Of course, facing William Penn, a university that has fielded a football program since 1892 (just 22 years after William Woods opened as a college) a mere 15 months after The Woods announced it was adding football in May 2023 was going to be the tallest of orders, as was the Owls second-ever game, at 5^th-ranked Grandview University in Des Moines, Iowa on September 7. And they certainly were; the Owls were defeated soundly in both games.

But the first-ever football coach in school history was undeterred, as was his new team.

"Of course, these were certainly not the results you want," said WWU Head Coach Julian Mendez, making his own debut as a college head coach, of the first two games in William Woods history in Iowa. "But at the end of the day, we were able to have some live reps against two long-time, established college football programs in William Penn and Grandview, which is something our whole team needed and hasn't had the opportunity to do. Now, we have to learn from it."

Win or lose, though, there was one thing for certain for the Owls football team, its coaches, and the contingent of green-clad supporters of The Woods who made the trek North to Oskaloosa and Des Moines for the first two contests: all of them were to witness the making of William Woods history.

"It is surreal to be here, after watching this entire plan to add football come to fruition, and watching a William Woods football team finally play a real game versus another university," said Steve Wilson, Vice President of Student Engagement and Intercollegiate Athletics at WWU. "It has been a year and a half of blood, sweat, tears and really a whole lot of fun in planning this night, but to do so, you certainly don't stand alone. We had to have great leadership in spearheading something like this. Adding football at The Woods has been the most complete team effort of anything I have been a part of during my career in athletics, and finally, here we are."

Opening night at William Penn was the culmination of months of planning at The Woods after the official announcement of adding the sport on May 22, 2023. Considering all the work that needed to be done in a short time to prepare for this moment, including hiring a coaching staff, recruiting players, building a football-ready facility to include locker rooms and equipment, it was a remarkable achievement for William Woods to even make it to the point of taking the field against institutions that have been playing the game for decades. And despite the initial results on the field, every Owls player will always remember representing William Woods the first time the school ever competed on the gridiron.

"Obviously, the results on the scoreboard are not what we wanted, and we know we have a lot of things to work on going forward as a program," said junior quarterback Gabe Serri, an O'Fallon (Mo.) native who transferred from Benedictine College to play football at The Woods, after the first two games. "I still think we competed hard and did a lot of good things for a team that is competing in college football for the first time, especially against such established programs. We'll continue to grow and learn as a team, and I still have high hopes for this season and the future."

The first few games of 2024 will always be remembered for the many "firsts" in William Woods athletic history, including the first touchdown in WWU history, a 21-yard touchdown pass from Serri to sophomore receiver Troy Oliver (Leander, Texas) during WWU's 54-6 loss to Grandview. Then there was the first-ever home football game at William Woods, versus St. Ambrose on September 14. And while the Owls fell short on the scoreboard again, what was a major victory was being able to host a game on campus, complete with a new playing facility, locker rooms, bleachers, and fans tailgating and cheering themselves hoarse for the Owls on a beautiful Fall day, a mere year and a half after officially adding the sport.

Three games into the season, the first-ever Owls football team had already made history, if for no other reason than by doing something no other William Woods student-athlete had ever done - representing the school on the gridiron. But what happened on the evening of September 21, 2024 wasn't just historic - it was downright earth-shattering.

Bragging rights for the ages

The campuses of William Woods and its fellow resident of Fulton, Missouri Westminster College, are only separated by two and a half miles. Which is fitting, because since the two schools were established in the 19^th century, they have been joined at the hip - constantly compared to each other, competing against each other, and even long connected to each other through marriage during the decades when WWU was an all-women's college and Westminster all men.

It is safe to say that no one connected to the two schools could ever envision a day when William Woods and Westminster would meet on the football field, especially when The Woods had only admitted male students for the first time 30 years ago. But for William Woods to actually beat the Blue Jays in their first-ever meeting, in the Owls fourth-ever game against a Westminster College that has been fielding a football team for decades? Unthinkable!

But that was just what happened at Westminster's Mueller Stadium on September 21^st, as the Owls rode Serri's three touchdown passes to Oliver on the way to a stunning 50-35 victory. It was the first football win in William Woods history, and established football bragging rights for the ages for The Woods versus their ancient crosstown rivals.

"For our guys, that was a really big, just getting that first-ever win and getting that under the belt," said Serri. "As big as it was to defeat Westminster in our first year as a program, going forward, that is not where we want to stay. Our goal is to handily beat teams like them each year, keep getting better and go several levels above that, which means beating even higher ranked teams in the future."

"Leading up to that game, our coaches were telling us that we did not want to be the losers of the town, so being able to beat them was tremendously exciting," said Oliver. "It was really fun to see all parts of our team executing that night - our offense, defense and special teams - and to see what we could put together as a team. It all came together and it was exciting to see for that night what we are capable of as a team."

The victory over Westminster was not only the first ever William Woods football victory, but it was a preview of what the sport could deliver at The Woods in the future. Something that Coach Mendez had seen in flashes throughout the Fall, even while navigating a Heart of American Conference schedule full of landmines.

"As a competitor, I want to win every game," said Mendez. "But as a head coach at a first-year program, I was more concerned about how competitive, how much we fought, and how much we played together as a team this first year. And as the season went along, I have seen glimpses of that, where we have shown that we can play against an established program and hold our own for a few quarters, kind of a preview of what this program could be. Now, we need to find out what we are missing as a program to close the gap and be what we strive to be."

But whatever the scoreboard said in 2024, it was clear that the entire autumn was a huge victory for William Woods. The university had come together to pull off an amazing undertaking for a small, independent institution - establishing a football program - with the exciting prospect for everyone who cares about WWU to watch it grow and be a source of pride in future years.

"We're trying to set these guys up to not only win right now, but so that they continue to win, and the program is going to be successful, for the long haul," Mendez said. "In the meantime, we are trying to get these young men to understand that this process of dealing with adversity and building a program will be with them for the rest of their life. Maybe that little bit of adversity you faced in football, when you learned you could push yourself through it and rely on others, will benefit you some day 15 years down the road when you face adversity in life and have to know how to respond."

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