The Quote of the Day about Rutgers Football (1958 edition)

"Football at Rutgers has been a lot of fun. Even if I had dreamed that I might become a real good player at a big-time football school, this is where I would have gone. Here, football has been a part of college, not college a part of football. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way."

--Billy Austin

This is one of the more quoted remarks about Rutgers football, and it's been used by many to push an agenda. We just like the thought, and we've always thought that Billy Austin was the kind of player whom any team would want (and not just for his considerable gridiron skills). In some ways he created the mold into which other special Scarlet Knights like Brian Leonard have easily fit. He's a great model for any student athlete to live up to.

You can read contemporary reports about this Rutgers star in this October 20, 1958 article from the Sports Illustrated Vault and in this November 24, 1958 article from Time, both of which include the famous quotation (in slightly different versions; the version above is from the last line of the SI article).