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This year is the 50th reunion of the 1963 Oberlin College football team, one of the most successful teams in school history. Finishing with a 6-2 record, it remains as the winningest season in the last 62 years of the Yeomen football program.
There were seven seniors who led the Yeomen through the historic season that featured six straight wins. Fullback and linebacker John McCaslin, who played both ways in every game, served as co-captain along with offensive and defensive tackle Greg Shepard. Joe Fink was another two-way player in the trenches, playing both nose guard and center. At the skill positions, the Yeomen were led by wide receivers Charles Marshall and Robert Steinberg, running back Mike Koslow, and quarterback James Wright.
After dropping the season-opener to Hiram, Oberlin gave perennial small college national power Washington & Lee all they could handle in week two in a 29-13 loss. W&L entered that game with a record of 25-1-1 over the previous three seasons and the Yeomen nearly pulled off the upset. Little did anyone know it would be the last time the Yeomen tasted defeat in 1963.
In week three, Oberlin earned its first win over Otterbein since 1954 with a 19-3 victory and then followed that win with a 32-19 triumph over Ohio Wesleyan – the first since 1956.
With their record now even a 2-2, the Yeomen returned home to host Kenyon on Homecoming Weekend. The team did not disappoint the home faithful, downing the Lords 33-12. Koslow rushed for a then school record 259 yards in the game. That performance still ranks as the second best all-time.
The following week, Oberlin took a charter plane to Baltimore, Maryland where it dismantled Johns Hopkins, 47-15, in the first-ever meeting between the two schools. The Yeomen continued their ground attack, rushing for a school record 441 yards in the win, a single-game team rushing record that still stands.
The momentum continued the next week as the team knocked off nationally ranked Denison 20-14, marking the team's first win over the Big Red since 1951. In the season finale, Oberlin would then secure its first victory over Wooster since 1950 by upending the Scots, 14-13.
Despite just an eight-game schedule, the team's 1,714 rushing yards in 1963 remains the Oberlin school record.
The seven senior members of the team graduated from Oberlin and all went on to earn advanced degrees from various institutions. The quintessential 'student-athletes', these Yeomen played for the love of the game and learned valuable life lessons along the way.
