ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Many stories have been written and told recounting the Roberts Wesleyan men's basketball team's landmark victory over a heavily favored Buffalo State team on Feb. 4, 1967.

Senior standouts Frank Carter, Bill Bachmann and Keith Moore combined to score 71 points during the Raiders' 91-81 triumph in front of a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,000 at Churchville-Chili High School, but four Roberts sophomores also walked out of the gym that night with something that has allowed them to author a largely untold tale that provided the men with more than a half-century of memories.

The Broken Bleacher Board. 

Unbreakable bonds

The story begins in the late 1950s in Blasdell, N.Y., where Dick Simoff and Dan Beach attended elementary school together.

The two were good friends but lost touch when Beach moved after junior high school. Simoff and Beach bumped into each other at a school play in the spring of 1965 and discovered that they both were planning on attending Roberts Wesleyan College.

That fall Beach was assigned to room with a fellow freshman from Pennsylvania named Kurt Rutzmoser in Updyke Hall. Simoff, who lived on a different floor in Updyke, quicky reconnected with his old pal and his new roommate.

"The three of us became close friends from that time on," Simoff said. "And, we've maintained that friendship ever since."

The group also befriended another first-year student, Ken Demster, who became a standout on the cross country and track and field teams.

The Roberts campus was fairly quiet in those days, so the group had to seek out some of its own fun.

 Fortunately, they enjoyed following sports and the Roberts men's basketball team was entering a special era where it won 38 of its 44 games over the next two seasons.

Roberts did not have a gym on campus at the time, so the group became regulars in the stands for "home" games at Churchville-Chili High School and even made it a habit to hit the road to show their support in places as far away as Toronto.

"We would get into our cars on a Friday and travel to the away games," Rutzmoser said.

While road trips were fun, home games were the place to be.

'The place was just rocking'

Churchville-Chili High School is located less than two-and-a-half miles from campus, so the group did not have to travel far on the night of Feb. 4, 1967, but they did arrive early for one of the most anticipated matchups in the history of Roberts Wesleyan men's basketball.

The Raiders, as they were known at the time, entered the contest riding a 15-game winning streak. Buffalo State came into the game as the top-ranked team in the SUNYAC conference with a 10-3 record.

Beach, Demster, Rutzmoser and Simoff made their way into the gym around 4:30 p.m., well before the start of the junior varsity contest, and took their spot three or four rows up in the bleachers on the west side.

Others were not as fortunate. The gym quickly filled up, forcing the fire marshal to turn away several hundred fans prior to the start of the varsity game. With several players who could dunk, Roberts wowed the crowd during its pregame warm-ups and that energy carried over after tip-off.

"It was a fast-paced game," said Dave Scribner, a reserve guard for the Raiders. "When I got on the court, I ran faster than I had ever ran before and was quicker than I ever was before."

The Raiders, who led by as many as 16 points, also did something they had never done before. They beat the Bengals.

"When we were up 10 points with two minutes to go and knew we were going to win, everybody in the stands started chanting, 'We beat Buffalo, we beat Buffalo,'" Scribner said.

The chant wasn't the only memorable thing that happened at that time.

"The place was just rocking," Beach said. "During the foot stomping, a piece of bleacher broke underneath our feet and went down and landed on the floor."

"With all of the jumping up and down, the board must have cracked," Simoff said. "All of a sudden, it just gave way."

Initially, the group wasn't sure what to do.

"We were poor college kids and we thought that maybe Churchville-Chili would fine us or charge us," Beach said. "Somebody picked up the board and put it under their coat and we walked out."

After returning to campus, Rutzmoser used a wood burner to etch the date and score into the 40-by-4½-inch splinter.

"I thought that it would be cool to have as a souvenir because we were so stoked about the team," he said.

Board games

The board stayed in Rutzmoser's room for the remainder of the semester and throughout the group's college days as they enjoyed their time together at Roberts.

One of their highlights was a trip to Florida as they all piled into Rutzmoser's 1953 primer gray Volkswagen.

"We loaded tents and suitcases and everything into Kurt's Volkswagen bug," Beach said. "We took off because it cost like a penny a mile to drive it."

The only thing tighter than the space in the car, was the friendship between the people in it.

When graduation came, Rutzmoser kept the board and displayed it in his garage and recreation room. Every few years, he would send it to Beach.

"We asked the other two guys if they wanted it, but they didn't, so we just kind of hung onto it," Rutzmoser said.

The board, which often became a conversation starter with guests, has resided in Pennsylvania and Montana with Rutzmoser and New York, Michigan, Iowa and, briefly, Washington, with Beach and his wife, Shelly.

Shelly joked that the friends would send the board to each other whenever their wives got tired of having it around the house.

"My wife wanted to throw it away several times," Rutzmoser said.  "I think that I slid it under the bed and kept it there for a while."
 
And then he returned it to Beach.

"When we moved to Washington, I had it," said Beach, who retired after a 51-year career in education and now lives in Stanwood, Wash. "We were going from 1,300 square feet to 700 square feet and pretty much everything was going. I didn't know what I would do with it here, so I wrapped it up and sent it to Kurt."

Simoff, who enjoyed a 32-year career in education and now lives in Bradenton, Fla., had actually forgotten about the board before hearing about it again last summer.

"I thought it was long gone," he said.

Heading home

Quite the contrary, in fact the board is alive, well and back at Roberts.

When Rutzmoser, who retired after a career as a health physicist with the state of Pennsylvania, heard that Scribner was writing a book about the 1965-67 men's basketball teams, he decided that it might be time to return the relic.

So, he reached out to fellow class of 1969 member Dr. Paul Mroz, who served as manager of the 1966-67 team.

"I'm downsizing here, my kids don't want this," Rutzmoser said. "I thought, 'Hey, this might be look good in the trophy cabinet.'"

Mroz contacted Executive Director of Athletics Bob Segave, who was more than happy to accept it on behalf of the Athletic Department.

"This is an actual piece of history," Segave said. "You can feel close to something even though you weren't there, but when you can touch something that was there and preserved for more than 50 years, that is really special. I think that this is a great thing for the Athletic Department to have and the University to have."

The board arrived back on campus in time to be shared with members of the 1965-67 teams as they returned for Homecoming with their coach, Bill Hughes, to celebrate the release of Scribner's book, Against All Odds.

Mroz wrote a detailed description of the night of the Buff State game to accompany the board when it is displayed, calling it "a true Roberts fan trophy."

Those who saw it were impressed.

"The fact that those guys would hold onto it for so long speaks volumes to me," Scribner said. "That says that they really cared, that they loved us and that they wanted to be a part of it. They were proud fans of ours and it was a big deal. We made them happy, and we made them proud to be from Roberts."

"I think what it indicates is the intense spirit that was generated by the team and picked up by the spectators," added Mroz.

Rutzmoser is glad that the board will have a permanent home.

"It meant a lot to us and the school meant a lot to us," Rutzmoser said. "My college degree opened doors for me everywhere and the friends that we made were for life. I am very grateful for my time at Roberts."

Demster was inducted into the Roberts Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996. Beach is comforted by the fact that the memento will be kept in the Voller Athletic Center, close to where their late friend, who died last October, is also honored.

"It's kind of neat that the board's going to go into the same trophy case where Ken has been remembered," Beach said.

He's also pretty sure that the statute of limitations has passed in regards to the group having to pay restitution.

"I think we're probably safe," he quipped. "I probably could afford the fine now a little bit better than I could have back then."