In the late 1950's and early 1960's, Manitoba was a hotbed for amateur football. There were eight high school teams in Winnipeg, five teams in the Manitoba Juvenile Football League (19-year-old max), two teams in the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Junior Football League (Winnipeg RODS and Weston Wildcats, 21-year-old max) and two teams in the senior league (St. James Rams and St. Vital Bulldogs, for those 21 and over). The RODS, under head coach George Depres, went to the national final five times, winning in '55, '56 and '61, while the Rams and Bulldogs were in the national championship almost every year. 

Despite all of the province's success, there was a glaring void at the university level. The Manitoba Bisons had previously played in the Western Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union, but hadn't had a team since 1948, when the program shut down. 

In 1961, players from Manitoba's various leagues wanted to get a university team going again. They went to the University of Manitoba Students Union (UMSU), and after a referendum, the student population voted in favour of football returning. 

A fee was imposed upon every student, which helped fund the team. Beginning in 1962, Manitoba officially became members of the Western Intercollegiate Football League (WIFL), thus beginning the legacy of what is now the modern day Bisons. 

Building the foundation 
At that time, the university went out and got the best coaches that they could. Because of his recent success at the junior level, it was a no-brainer to hire Depres (passed away in 2008) as the team's bench boss. 

The former Winnipeg Blue Bomber, quarterback for the RODS and two-time member of the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame brought along long-time friend George 'Jeep' Woolley and Keith Pierce to help round out his staff. 

"One of the best things they did was hire George Depres as the coach. That was one of the reasons I went to Manitoba. It was my school, and also because of the coaches. They had all these championships, and he brought a number of guys from the RODS over with him to play on that first-year team," said Bill Malcolm, a member of the 1962, as well as 1964-66 Bisons rosters as a guard, who was a recent graduate of Gordon Bell High School at the time. 

"When you think back about it, I learned a lot from the coaches about how to grow up and how to become a good person. They treated us with respect. They were hard-nosed, but they always respected us. When I finished playing football, I was actually still in university because I went on to get a law degree. After my undergraduate degree I went on and coached high school football for six years. The reason I did was because I wanted to put back into the community what I received from these guys. That's the type of effect they had on us."

Depres' philosophy as a coach was to play with relatively small, but mobile linemen. The Bisons – who had 36 players on the '62 team – were out-weighed by at least 20 pounds by their opposition, but they played with heart and grit every time they stepped on the field. 

"In those days you couldn't block with your hands like you do now. You had to have your arms in front of you and you had to block with your shoulder or your head and the long snapper wasn't protected like he is now on a punting or kicking play," recalled Malcolm with a chuckle. "On occasion I was called on to be a third-down snapper. I was young enough and naïve enough to say alright, I'll do this for the team."

Other notable players from the 1962 roster included Nick Laping, who was a five-year starter at quarterback, and 27-year-old Gary Aldcorn, who played five years in the NHL, and had gone back to school. He was the oldest player on the team as an end. 

Laping, who passed away in 2009, is a member of countless hall of fames, including the WHSFL Hall of Fame as a coach and player, the Oak Park Raiders Hall of Fame as a builder and coach and the Football Manitoba Hall of Fame as a coach. 

In 1966, he, along with many other members from the inaugural '62 team, helped lead the Bisons to the Hardy Cup. He will be recognized with a plaque during this year's Bisons football alumni homecoming brunch, which will honour the 1962 roster (click here for tickets). The plaque will be hung proudly in Manitoba's locker room inside Investors Group Field. 

Student support 
Manitoba's fan support throughout the early years was fantastic. Between 1500 to 2200 people came out to every home game, which was hosted "smack dab" where IGF is now. In 1967, the team moved to Pan Am Stadium, but prior to that the students would pack into the wooden bleachers that went up ten to 12 rows. 
The support the Bisons got extended well beyond home games. For example, when the team departed for Saskatoon for their first-ever contest in 1962, the students union arranged for a train to transport the team, as well as the students from Winnipeg to Saskatoon and back. A total of 650 made the trek.

"In those days there was an underground passage that took you from the hotel to the train station. I remember just walking down the stairs and going into the tunnel and all you could hear was this noise," said Malcolm. "Everything was reverberating, the noise was just unbelievable with all the fans that were there waiting to get on the train. As an 18-year-old kid, I was mesmerized."

After winning their first-ever game, Manitoba's fans were ecstatic, so much so that they went onto the field, tore down the goal posts and put them back on the train. 

"I remember seeing a picture in the Winnipeg Tribune of a line of people coming from the railway station down main street towards Portage and Main with these big pieces of goal post," laughed Malcolm. "I was wide-eyed. I couldn't believe it!"

Leaving a legacy, in the classroom and beyond 
For as much as Manitoba's roster loved playing football, they were students first. Members of the 1962 team went on to become teachers, architects, dentists, lawyers, judges, politicians, vice-chancellors and entrepreneurs. In Malcolm's case, he worked as a criminal defence lawyer for 42 years. 

The team didn't see each other during the day for the most part, as they attended different faculties. When they got to strap on the pads, it was their opportunity to let loose and enjoy playing a game they cherished. 

"I remember talking to Nick Laping before he passed, and we were talking about all the guys from all those years. It wasn't like today where you went to the university because you were a football player and you wanted to become a pro. We went there to get an education, and the playing football was the fun part of it. We were student-athletes with the emphasis really on student aspect of it."

This year marks the 60-year anniversary of the '62 roster, and almost 20 alumni will be coming to the reunion and homecoming brunch, including Woolley, who turned 90 this year. The players on the 1962 team are proud to have been members of the first Bisons football team of the new era. Their squad was the base of the program, culminating just eight years later in back-to-back national championships. 

The group still keeps in touch, much like they did in 2006, when members of the 1966 team got together to celebrate the 40-year anniversary of their Hardy Cup win. 

"We had a very nice reunion, and George Depres was still alive at that time," noted Malcolm. 

"He was interviewed after the meet and greet, and he said something that none of us knew until we saw the video of the reunion two weeks later. He said 'I'm probably the most fortunate guy here at this reunion,' and George was blind at that stage of his life. He said, 'all the guys that came up to me, I remember their voices, so in my mind, they're just the same as they were 40 years ago.' It brought me to tears and it still does. We were still that bunch of young guys that they coached and brought together in his mind."