Game Today Represents Clawson Homecoming

The Buffalo papers have been writing about Coach Clawson, who grew up in the Buffalo area, has family and friends in the area, and he expects them to be in the stands and rooting for BG.

Clawson was a high school star in the Buffalo area...

Clawson, a native of Youngstown, was a two-sport athlete for Lewiston-Porter in the mid-80s and one of his first college coaching jobs was at the University at Buffalo in the early '90s. 

With Clawson at quarterback and Daryl Johnston at tailback, Lew-Port won the Niagara Frontier League championship in 1983. During Clawson's senior year in 1984, Lew-Port also won the NFL title under coach Jim Walker.

Yes, THAT Daryl Johnston.

Walker, his coach, helped to shape his philosophy.

"He always expected it to be important to us," Clawson said. "We could tell by how hard he worked that it was important to him and he expected the same commitment level from us. That's what you need to do as a coach. It needs to be more important to them than video games and going out at night. If you can make it important, at some point you're going to have success."

UB competed under some pretty, um, spartan conditions back then.

"We had two different practice fields, we had a grass field on Main Street and the turf field at the old UB Stadium on campus," Clawson said. "We were kind of based out of the Main Street office but for recruiting we were in Alumni Arena. Inevitability every day there was something I needed in the one office that was in the other office so I would drive back and forth. There was an old gym and the locker room was downstairs and there was a little blocked- off room that had all the weights in it. You go outside down the stairs and that's where the old stadium was. It was the same place where they played in the '50s and '60s."

There's more I haven't excerpted, so click the link and read the whole thing.  Nice story, and gives us a little more information about our coach and his influences.