Buffalo Bulls Football 1954

• Position - Wide Receiver
  
• Class - Junior
  
• Hometown - Elmira, NY
  
• High School - Elmira
• Size - Ht: 5-11 | Wt: 187
  

In 2011 Shay won the Ernie Davis award while playing for Elmira but despite being honored as the most outstanding football player in the metro Elmira area Shay had no scholarship offers and walked away from football.

In 2012 however Shay decided to walk on and despite the odds made the team. He spent his first year as a redshirt and then last season he worked with the scout teams.

1954 Helmet similar to one worn by the Bulls

After two pretty bad years UB's coach, Fritz Febel, finally thought he had the pieces in place to start winning football games. He did have experience and also some youth, like Dick Doll, that would make a mark at UB.

Despite all the promise for the third straight year the Buffalo Bills went through the season with little to no offense. During a four week period, Buffalo was outscored 131 to 7.  Buffalo lost their first six games before finally beating St Lawrence University 13-6 on November 6, 1954 in a mostly empty Civic Stadium in Buffalo.

With a 1-7 record, on the road and down late in the fourth quarter UB's offense came to live as the Bulls raced 94 yards on seven plays in the closing minutes for a win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

It was a great way to close the season but it was not enough to save the coaching job for Febel.

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Coach - Fritz Febel

Fritz Fabel was a fixture at UB long before he took over as the schools head coach in 1952.

The Purdue Graduate took a shot at the pros when he suited up for the Chicago Bears in 1935 but the following season he was on the coaching staff at Buffalo.

Febel was an assistant at the University from from 1936-48. Those were some of the more successful seasons that the Buffalo football program had ever known. So when there was an opening in 1952 Febel, already a faculty member, was an obvious choice to take over the team.

Unfortunately Febel was never able to make his teams as competitive as the teams on which he had served as a head coach. Febel would coach for three years before being replaced by Dick Offenhamer.

Another New York Governor who led the liberal/moderate faction of the Republican Party. Dewey was an advocate for the professional and business community of the Northeastern United States, which would later be called the "Eastern Establishment." This group supported most of the New Deal social-welfare reforms enacted during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and it consisted of internationalists who were in favor of the United Nations and the "Cold War" fight against communism and the Soviet Union.

The fallout of world war two was still in full effect. The Frech, no longer able to hold there colonies lost Dien Bien Phu, French military outpost in Vietnam, falls to Viet Minh army.

During the same year the Geneva Conference is convened to bring peace to Vietnam. The country is divided at the 17th parallel, pending democratic elections.