Because of where many of them had been – the battlefields of Europe, the skies over Japan – the members of the 1946 Missouri School of Mines football team forged a rare quality, that kind of special chemistry a coach is always looking for.

The teammates were bonded by common experiences of war and the unity it took to attain victory.  That bond manifested itself in many ways.  For the 1946 Miner football team, one common value was respect for each other, regardless of age or other differences.

"Age made little difference," said Dick Whitney, a halfback on the 1946 team.  "Nobody was pulling rank on anyone.  It was easy to get along with everybody."

These players also had a different outlook on the game.  They enjoyed being back on the field as though they had a second lease on life.

"We were just delighted to get back on the field," said Bill Gammon, who also played halfback and led the 1946 team with four touchdowns.  "I was looking forward to the season and thoroughly enjoyed it."

"Everyone was out there just to have fun," added the team's center, Ralph Stallman.

And after World War II, who could blame them?

* * * * *

To put in perspective what the 1946 football team looked like, consider the following:

The 1994 Miner squad was considered to be one of the oldest Miner teams in its time.  That roster included 17 seniors and a number of redshirted players. The average age of that 76-man team – 19.4 years old – falls somewhere in the middle of the sophomore year.  Missouri S&T's 2018 team that won the Mineral Water Bowl, another veteran squad which consisted of 97 players of which 36 were true freshmen, had an average age of 19.3 years.

Now, look at the team that took the field in 1946.  This squad included 20 players who would return the following year to help the Miners win their first outright conference championship, yet the average player on the 1946 team was 21.9 years old.  These days, that age would put one closer to receiving his degree than having received his first lecture.

"What I can remember is that there was quite a cross-section of players out there," said Roy Shourd, who came to MSM after serving with the U.S. Navy Seebees in the Pacific and later captained the 1949 conference championship team.  "We had quite a few players who were married and had children.  It was a more mature team that some of those you see today."

Many members of the Miners' 53-man squad were in the service during World War II.  The first true post-war team (MSM did field a team in 1945, but like many teams, it was just coming together after the Pacific Theatre ended in September) had eight players who had already celebrated their 25^th birthday and only six who were still teenagers.

Most of the players attended MSM on the GI Bill, which allowed veterans to continue their college education basically free of charge.

"We had a bunch of GIs out for football," recalled Stallman, who at age 28 was one of the oldest players on that Miner roster.  "We didn't get anything for doing it, but under the GI Bill we didn't need scholarship help."

Thanks in part to the bill, a number of veterans also appeared on the school's other athletic teams and some of the programs prospered as a result.

MSM's swimming team, for example, won back-to-back Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association championships in 1947 and 1948.  The golf team won a conference title in 1947 and the indoor track & field team won a championship in 1948, which was the last indoor track championship for a Miner team until 2009.  In addition, the men's basketball team, which had very limited success as a member of the MIAA, produced a 7-9 record in 1945-46 and a 10-9 record two years later – the first winning season in a non-war year as a member of the conference.

No program may have gained more from these war veterans than the football team, which had some of its best seasons during that stretch.  The Miners won their first outright MIAA title in 1947 – thanks in part to many of those returning players from 1946 – and added titles in 1949 and 1950.  In the latter year, the Miners gained their first post-season win in program history by winning the Corn Bowl over Illinois State.

* * * * *

The team that took the field in 1946 started one of the most memorable runs in school history.

"We had a lot of good, strong people with a lot of football experience and a lot of these players had played for Gale (Bullman, the Miners' head coach)," Gammon said.  "We were also a lot stronger and bigger, too.  When I came to school in 1943, I was just 17 years old and wasn't physically mature yet.  But I was more physically mature when I came back to play in 1946."

Some players were able to play during the war years.  MSM still played games during the 1942, 1943 and 1945 seasons, although the team lost several of its top players to active duty.  The 1943 team was primarily made up of cadets in the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), a means to keep MSM open during the war.

Most of the playing was taking place in other locations.  For instance, Jim McGrath played at the University of Georgia, while Gale Fulgham went to the University of Oklahoma.  Bob Reichelt played while in the ASTP at MSM.

"Our colonel in charge allowed us to play, provided we played All-Army teams," Reichelt said.  "A lot of us had to play under assumed names, because we were worried about how the brass would react.  One of the reasons was so our names never showed up in the newspaper."

Reichelt, who said he played under the assumed named of Robert Gordon, couldn't recall many of his teammates on those squads coming back to play after the war ended.  After serving in Europe, he was among the first soldiers to return, but missed the fall enrollment date and like many of his teammates on the 1946 team, had to wait until January to enroll.

McGrath, an end on that squad and a member of the championship team a year later, noted the bond which helped develop those teams.  Most of the first post-war team and a large part of the 1947 squad had something earlier Miner teams had lacked.

"We did find it a great deal different when we came back and it was due to our personal experiences," McGrath said.  "We just felt we were more capable of doing things.  Physically, we still had it.

"But we also had to play 60 minutes of the game (college rules in those days allowed a player to be substituted just once per quarter; therefore, most players played both offense and defense for the entire game).  When you look at the kids today, we were not in nearly as good physical condition as today's players and it took a toll on us."

College football has now evolved into a year-round game.  With the evolution within the game and off-season conditioning programs part of the package, it is not uncommon to see 300-pound players dotting rosters and teams carrying numerous players larger than Carl Block, a tackle who has listed on the 1946 roster at 250 pounds – making him the largest athlete on the team.  By comparison, the 2019 Miner roster had 19 players listed at or above the 250-pound mark.

After Block and 245-pound Jim Stephens, the next biggest member of the 1946 team was 220-pound tackle Neal Wood.  Wood was one of the many stars on that team and served as a captain on the championship team a year later, when he also won first-team All-MIAA honors.  It was a group that included:

-- Halfback Paul Fullop, who was decorated as one of the first Marine Aces in the Pacific and one of the leading scorers on the 1947 team.  Fullop, who won All-MIAA honors both before and after serving in World War II, died in a plane crash in Colorado a few years after graduating from MSM.

-- Fulgham, a guard who played some at the University of Oklahoma during the conflict, was considered to be one of the top linemen in the conference.

-- Tackle Luther Steele, who arrived at MSM as a 21-year old in 1946 and developed into a first-team all-conference player by the 1948 seasons.  He later became president of Southeast Air Control in Fort Worth, Texas.

-- Fullback Gilbert "Moose" Carafiol was a first-team all-conference selection prior to joining the service in 1942.  He later went to the Iowa Pre-Flight school during the war, then returned to MSM as a key member of the 1946 team.

-- End John Hazelett, a former submarine commander who had played at the University of Illinois prior to his arrival at MSM.

The 1946 roster included 10 players who had were named to the All-MIAA team at some point in their career.  It included Whitney, Shourd and back Art Schmidt, who was one of the half-dozen teenagers on the squad.

Stallman, another of those 10 players, had received a scholarship in 1939 to attend the University of Alabama, where he redshirted for one season and then played for a year.  Shortly thereafter, the United States entered the war and he was sent to Williams Field in Arizona, where he spent time coaching a team.

He had originally crossed paths with Bullman while playing at Soldan High School in St. Louis when Bullman was coaching at Washington University.  He ran into Bullman again after the war and the Miner coach talked him into coming to Rolla.

Stallman had never played on the line before, but two weeks prior to the season opener against Saint Louis University, he was put in at center because Bullman needed someone there.  "The next thing I knew," Stallman said.  "I was starting against Saint Louis."

* * * * *

The season itself started auspiciously as the Miners lost that game to Saint Louis 24-0, but they rebounded with a 12-6 win over Central Methodist at the old Jackling Field.  Then came a road trip to play Oklahoma City University, then considered one of the top teams in the country.  The Chiefs had already won their first three games of the season by aggregate score of 138-0.

"I remember being in the car with coach Bullman when we were going to Oklahoma City," Whitney said.  "He was reading the newspaper and somebody predicted we would get beat 100-0.  He got so excited that he lit his pipe with the cigarette lighter and then threw the lighter out the window."

MSM did wind up on the short end of a lopsided score that night, losing 74-6, but the touchdown scored by Jerry Berry – a 25-year-old veteran who prior to the war played football at the University of Akron – was the first scored against the vaunted OCU defense all season.  Before the year ended, Oklahoma City would outscore its opponents 470-47 in going 10-1.

The Miners were able to put that game behind them quickly as they shut out Warrensburg (now the University of Central Missouri) and Maryville (now Northwest Missouri State), the latter win being the first by any team over the Bearcats in four years.  Those victories set up a meeting with Cape Girardeau (now Southeast Missouri State) for first place.  The Indians won that game 27-6 and went on capture the conference title, but the Miners would avenge that loss a year later.

MSM won one more game in 1946, beating Springfield (now Missouri State) before playing to ties with Pittsburg State and Kirksville (now Truman State) to finish 4-3-2.  But the disappointment of not winning the MIAA title – "a lot of us thought we should have won it in 1946," said Bob Kemper, the team's quarterback – served as a reminder a year later when the Miners entered the final game of the season.

Thanks to two early touchdowns by Fullop and a brilliant all-around performance by Whitney, the Miners smashed Cape Girardeau 47-19 at Jackling Field to win the title and avenge the loss from the previous season.  Whitney scored three times by catching a touchdown pass, running for a score and returning an interception for a touchdown.

By 1948, the ranks of veterans were beginning to diminish on the football squad.  Team members believe nearly 90 percent of the players were attending college under the GI Bill in 1946 and that the 1947 team had a relatively high percentage as well.  It wasn't until the 1948 season that rosters began returning to normal.

More than anything else, veterans were grateful for the GI Bill and the opportunity it provided them.

"It was a big help to us," said Kemper.  "We came in and got so much money as an allowance for books and tuition and it was a great help for us.  Many of us wouldn't have had a chance to go to college, let alone a school like Rolla."

"The GI Bill was a godsend," echoed McGrath.  "A lot of guys would have never had the opportunity to go to school."

The chance they had to go to school was unique, as was the football team it produced.