University’s 50th anniversary football team to be unveiled before first game

University players go through summer drills in preparation for the 50th season of Trojan football. (File photo courtesy Harrison Zhang, For OC Sports Zone)

University’s football team will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and to celebrate a 50th anniversary team will be announced before the team’s first game later this month.

“Coach Mark Cunningham (former Uni coach) and I did a 25-year anniversary team for the school’s 25 anniversary in 1994,” said long-time Uni coach Dick Roche.

“After the first of the year, we decided to put together a team for the 50 year. We kept the 25 players from the 25th year team and we each separately added a list of players since 1994.

“We then shared our lists (obviously we each had some different players) and came up with a list somewhere in the low 50’s (we were trying to keep the magic number at 50).”

Cunningham and Roche then went back to work a few weeks later and compared notes.

“We played with our list and finalized it in late July,” Roche said. “We ended up with 60 players (we figured no one would care if we went over 50) – 

“They will not receive anything specific for being named (like a medal, certificate etc.), but the team will be printed in each of the home game programs this year.”

OC Sports Zone will publish the 50th anniversary team before the first game.

University, led by first year coach Chris Hernandez, opens the season Friday, Aug. 30 on the road against Laguna Hills.

The Trojans’ first home game is Friday, Sept. 6 against Ocean View.