On This Date Presented by Belmont Realty

With the 2020 fall sports season canceled by the COVID-19 outbreak, we at Fordham have decided to dig back through our archives and provide our fans with content on some of the outstanding teams and student-athletes who have graced Rose Hill over the year.

Football Game Stats
 
September 6, 2003 – When Dave Clawson was hired as head football coach at Fordham in 1999, he brought with him an offensive mindset and we he recruited Kevin Eakin to be his quarterback Fordham fans were excited.
 

Eakin didn't become a starter until his junior year in 2002 and he promptly led Fordham to its first Patriot League title and first NCAA I-AA (now FCS) championship win. That season, the Rams offense led the Patriot League, and ranked 23rd in the NCAA, in passing offense (245.34 yards/game) and also led the league and was 13th in the nation in scoring (32.15 points/game).
 
With Eakin, along running back Kirwin Watson and wide receiver Javarus Dudley (both All-Patriot League selections in 2002) back, the Fordham offense was expecting even bigger things in 2003. And it didn't disappoint.
 
After opening the season with a 42-7 win over C.W. Post, Fordham ventured up to Rhode Island to take on the University of Rhode Island from the Atlantic 10 (now CAA). It's worth noting that in 2003 Rhode Island was a scholarship team while the Patriot League did not award athletic scholarships.
 
With the score tied at seven late in the first quarter, Eakin connected with Seann Farrell on a seven-yard pass to put Fordham up, 14-7, and he then ran for a score in the second quarter to extend the lead to 21-7.
 

After a Rhode Island touchdown made it a 21-14 game, Eakin threw three scoring strikes over the final 5:15 of the first half to give Fordham a commanding 42-14 halftime lead. His scoring strikes were to Peter Modelski (15 yards), Jim Caffarello (two yards), and Steve Porco (16 yards).
 
Late in the third quarter, Eakin found Dudley with a 16-yard scoring pass and the two connected again in the fourth with a 26-yard touchdown strike to break the school record set by Mark Carney in 2001.
 
The final in Kingston that day was Fordham 63, Rhode Island 28. The 63 points scored by the Fordham offense was the most scored by the Rams on the NCAA I-AA level and the most since a 78-7 win over New Haven in 1977.
 
Kevin would be named Patriot League Offensive Player of the Week following the game. He completed a career-high 25 of 34 passes for 297 yards and the school-record six touchdowns.
 
Eakin, who was inducted into the Fordham Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010 along with Watson and Dudley,  finished the 2003 season completing 60.7% of his passes (247-for-407) for 3,072 yards, both League-leading marks. He earned First Team All-Patriot League honors for the second straight year.
 
Over his career, Eakin threw for a school and Patriot League-record 6,112 yards and 45 touchdowns despite only starting two years. He completed 486 of 790 passes, both second best all-time, for the 6,112 yards. His completion percentage of 61.5% was also a school record, and he threw for over 200 yards 19 times in 25 career starts as well as surpassing the 300-yard mark five times. Eakin's career record as a starter was 19-6.
 
September 6, 1998 – By the start of the 1998 season, there was one guarantee Fordham fans could on – Fordham head coach Frank Schnur at some point during a match saying, "Get the ball to John!"  When the Rams did get the ball to forward John Wolyniec, good things happened as they did against Marist in 1998.
 
Wolyniec scored four of the Rams' five goals in the game, leading the Rams to a 5-2 victory over the Red Foxes in the second match of the New York Invitational, hosted by Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y.
 
Trailing 1-0 late in the first half, Wolyniec scored twice in a span of 1:39 to give Fordham a 2-1 lead heading into halftime.  Both goals were breakaway markers, the second of which came off a pass from Harris Tsangaris.
 
Just 2:13 into the second half, Wolyniec netted the hat trick, scoring off an assist from Anthony Tristani, making it a 3-1 score.  A.J. Rodriguez added to the Rams' lead in the 68^th minute, converting on his first of the year with assists going to Wolyniec and Tristani.
 
Though Marist scored in the 71^st minute to cut into the Fordham lead, Wolyniec put the game away in the 77^th minute with a penalty kick goal for his fourth marker of the game, tying the school record.  
 
It was Wolyniec's second career four-goal game, having done so a year ago against Detroit-Mercy.  The record was set originally by Lenord Kelly in 1972 and matched by John Shannon and Keith Loeffler during the 1982 season.
 
Wolyniec led the 1998 Rams back to the Atlantic 10 Championship tournament and was the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year.  He ended up leading the NCAA in scoring for the second straight season with 25 goals and 60 points, both new single season school records, and earned All-American and Academic All-American honors.