As a football player at Bates, Web Harrison ’63 was described by the Student as “small for a fullback — 5-foot-10, 170 pounds — but a vicious blocker.”

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marines on the day he graduated in 1963. Two years later, in 1965, he was among the first U.S. combat soldiers deployed to Vietnam. Harrison was discharged from the Marines as a captain in 1967. 

As officer candidates, he and his fellow Marines were expected to greet officers with this saying: “Good afternoon, sir, and welcome to another grand and glorious day to be alive and a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, where every day is a holiday and every meal is a banquet.”

Harrison returned to campus in 1974 as the football team’s defensive coordinator. While joking around with the coaching staff, including fellow alum Russ Reilly ’66, the long Marine greeting became a resounding Bates cheer: “What a great day to be a Bobcat!”

“Harrison takes command” read the headline in the Student when the college announced he’d been promoted to the head coaching role in September 1978. 

“We are fortunate to have a man such as Webster Harrison on our staff to take over the team,” said Director of Athletics Bob Hatch, who had coached Harrison in the early 1960s. “He has proven his ability as a coach, both at Boston University and at Bates. With a man of Web's caliber to take over, the continuity of our program will be maintained with minimal disruption. I am extremely pleased with this appointment." 

Harrison’s first year at the helm was one of the best in program history. The Bobcats went 6–2, capturing the CBB title along the way. Meanwhile, their two losses were by a combined nine points. 

With Hugo Colasante’s graduation in 1978, quarterback-in-waiting Chuck Laurie ’79 finally got a chance to show everyone what he could do in the 1978 opener against Union College. 

In a 48–32 victory, Laurie threw five touchdown passes to set a Bates record that still stands today. Four of the five touchdown passes went to first-year wide receiver Larry DiGiammarino ’82 as the rookie tied Bruce Winslow ’68 for the most touchdown catches in one game in Bates history. 

Laurie went on to have a remarkable campaign, throwing 17 touchdown passes to tie Jim Murphy’s single-season record and rushing for two more. His 19 total touchdowns that year remained the standard at Bates until Colton Bosselait ’25 accounted for 21 total touchdowns in 2022.

The last game on the schedule was against Tufts, now led by Vic Gatto, who had decamped from Lewiston to Somerville just a month before the start of the season. On campus, emotions were running high for a victory in what was then known as the “Centennial Cup” game against the Jumbos, honoring the 1875 inaugural game.

“Playing Tufts has developed into a very intense rivalry,” Harrison told the Student a few days before the game. “And Vic’s presence has added to the emotion.”

So for Bates, entering the contest on a five-game winning streak, the pressure was on, and it showed. Poor play, including three lost fumbles, put the Bobcats into a 16–0 hole in the first half. Bates clawed to within two points late, but missed a game-tying two-point conversion, losing 16–14.  

"We played awfully in the first half," Harrison told the Student after the game. "We wanted to win the game so badly that emotionally we were very tense. The intensity eventually worked its way out but the damage had been done.” 

Nevertheless, it was a highly successful year, and the Bobcats didn’t miss a beat in 1979, going 5–3 in Harrison’s second season as head coach. 

It was a different type of team in ’79, with the defense and the rushing attack taking center stage. The Bates defense recorded three shutouts, their most in one season since 1968. On top of that, they held opposing quarterbacks to just a 34.4 percent completion percentage, still a Bates record.

An injury-marred 1980 season saw the Bobcats start the new decade with a 3–5 record. However, DiGiammarino continued to shine as a receiver, catching pass after pass from quarterback Brian Pohli ’81 for a total of 645 receiving yards. It set a Bates record that he’d absolutely smash the next season. 

The year concluded with what the Student called “a strange ending to a frustrating season” as the Bobcats upset Gatto’s Tufts team by a count of 16–14 in Somerville.

The game featured a 47-yard field goal from Don Sarason '83, tying a Bates record, a fake punt where Dick Lagg ’82 completed a pass to DiGiammarino, and “the almost withdrawn calmness of Vic Gatto after the game.” 

The Lagg to DiGiammarino connection proved to be some neat foreshadowing, as the former took over the starting quarterback role in 1981. The duo were almost impossible to stop that year as Bates went 6–2 and won the CBB title.

“After three years of sitting on the bench, I finally got a chance to play,” Lagg said. “Not only was it fun to watch people get surprised about something I knew I could always do, but it gave me a chance to see who my true friends were throughout the process.”

Tallying 59 catches for 825 yards and five touchdowns in 1981, DiGiammarino reeled in almost as many awards. He became the first (and so far only) Bobcat to earn American Football Coaches Association All-America honors, while also earning Division II and III Player of the Year honors from the UPI and the Eastern College Athletic Association, plus the prestigious Gold Helmet award from the New England Football Writers.

For his career, DiGiammarino caught 151 passes for 2,123 yards and 17 touchdowns — all Bates records to this day.

A product of Marblehead (Mass.) High School, DiGiammarino didn’t even make the varsity team in high school until his senior year due to a late growth spurt. While never the fastest player, DiGiammarino had route-running skills and simply caught everything thrown his way. He played football and baseball at Bates, telling the Lewiston Daily Sun that “baseball had more to do with my interest in Bates than football did.” 

In fact, DiGiammarino was such a good baseball player that he spent the summer of 1981 playing in the prestigious Cape Cod League. He declined a contract offer to play professionally in Italy after graduating from Bates and headed off to law school at Boston University. 

The 1981 season joined 1978, 1966, 1965, and 1946 as the only years to see Bates football win six or more games post-WWI. 

“There was always a good feeling surrounding the (1981) team,” Harrison said. “They were a fine group of young men. When you get good people with strong character who enjoy football, that’s when you have a winning season. It was my most enjoyable season since I’ve been coaching.” 

While Harrison’s 1982 team was able to finish with a .500 record of 4–4, the program did not reach the heights of 1981 again during his tenure. But for Harrison, wins and losses were only a small part of the equation. 

Many of his athletes thrived in the classroom, as evidenced by cornerback and Dana Scholar Neal Davidson ’83 earning Academic All-America honors in 1981 and 1982, the first Academic All-American in any sport in the college’s history. 

Coaching was most rewarding for Harrison when he helped students “who had the toughest time here. Those were the ones that I felt were my successes — students who changed the most in the course of their time here and who came in and needed help and needed direction.

“None of that had to do with their athletic ability. It had to do with helping them be the best person they could be. Those were the ones who I remember most fondly.”

Harrison freely admitted that the X’s and O’s of coaching wasn’t where he found purpose at Bates. “I probably spend too much time in the locker room with the players just talking and finding out what’s going on in their lives.”

His athletes in both football and lacrosse loved him for it. 

“I’ve coached youth leagues, and I can’t step on a field without thinking about him,” Steve Brackett ’85 said. “I relate so much about my life to Web. I credit him with success in business, family, and friendships. Web taught me about living with integrity and a moral compass.”

“Web lived the ‘It’s a Great Day to be a Bobcat’ slogan,’” adds David Hild ’84. “He was a good student, a good athlete, and a good Marine. He turned into a better family man, coach, and friend than we could imagine, and he never ever rested until he ultimately became one of the truest and best Bobcats this college has ever known.”

Breaking the Streak

Bates football did not see much success in the mid to late 1980s in terms of wins and losses, but there were some amazing moments and individual standouts. 

The 1985 team had one of the most explosive offenses in school history. They scored at least 20 points in six of their eight games, and after an 0–4 start, the Bobcats won three of their last four to finish the year strong. Bates averaged 377.5 total yards per game that season, still a program record. By far the highlight of the campaign was a 51–0 destruction of Colby, the program’s most points scored in one game against a U.S. collegiate opponent. Bates tallied 585 yards of total offense in the contest, with an incredible 541 of those yards coming on the ground as the Bobcats averaged 7.7 yards per carry. 

The Student summed up the Oct. 25 game in one word: “Fun. You could see it on everybody’s faces. There were smiles everywhere. The players were smiling, the coaches were smiling, and the fans were smiling. But who would not be. Colby, of course, was not.”

Quarterback Ron Garrison ’85 didn’t have to throw much in the Colby game, but in the season finale vs. Tufts, he completed a program record 12 consecutive passes at one point in the 24–6 win. The senior turned in the most efficient season from a quarterback in program history, completing a school record 59.2 percent of his passes. 

On defense, a constant sack threat from his defensive end position was Rico Corsetti ’85. Corsetti’s numbers would have been off the charts if not for other teams avoiding him like the plague. “I line up on the strong side all the time and teams run the other way,” Corsetti told the Student. “It feels like I’m running track.” 

Corsetti was named All-New England as a senior and, in 1987, made some history when he appeared in two games for the New England Patriots as a replacement player. He became the first and so far only Bobcat to play in the NFL during the regular season. (Lore says that NFL legend Fritz Pollard was a Bates student, but that’s been debunked by Richard Johnson ’78, the preeminent New England sports historian.) 

Another key player on the 1985 Bobcats was Chris Hickey ’88, who broke 14 school rushing records during his time in Lewiston. In his senior year, he finished second in the nation in both rushing (1,266 yards) and scoring (17 touchdowns). Both those totals still stand as Bates records today. He won honorable mention on the Little All-America team, was named both the ECAC Division III New England Player of the Year and the NESCAC Offensive Player of the Year, and the New England Football Writers Association presented him the annual Gold Helmet Award.

Hickey’s 30 career rushing touchdowns ties him with Tom Carr ’66 for the most in Bates history.

A talented running back is not much without a great offensive line. And Bates athletics recognized that when they gave prestigious Senior Citation awards to both Hickey and center Rob Gabbe ’88. As the anchor of the offensive line, Gabbe was consistently recognized as the most powerful, quickest, and most effective center in New England Division III football.

Bates did not win the CBB title in 1985, but they did bring it home in 1986, beating Bowdoin and Colby by a combined score of 57–6. 

Unfortunately, it would be another 13 years before Bates claimed another outright CBB Series championship. And no honest accounting of 150 years of Bates football would be complete without mentioning the 37-game losing streak. 

In 1991, the Bobcats tied Amherst 26–26 in the season opener, only to drop each of their next seven games by double digits. Harrison stepped down as head football coach after the season to focus on leading the men’s lacrosse team. He had been coaching both programs simultaneously since 1978. 

Bates named Rick Pardy as the program’s new head coach, but things continued to not go their way. The Bobcats went 0–8 every year from 1992 to 1994, and none of the games were close. The losing streak stretched into 1995, with Bates starting 0–6. There were signs of life, thanks to close games against Wesleyan and Middlebury that were both decided by just one touchdown. 

Then on Nov. 4, 1995, the streak came to an end. The Bobcats defeated Bowdoin in dramatic fashion, 33–29, for their first win in five years, a notable enough victory to be mentioned on ESPN’s SportsCenter (the clip is included in this CBB history). 

“The win marked more than relief for the football team,” wrote the Student. “Perhaps like no other positive event in recent memory, the game's final gun evoked an eruption of quasi-incredulous bliss. Like water breaking through a dam, spectators burst on to the field as Bowdoin's final (play) was stopped at Bates' two-yard line as time expired.” 

The goalposts never stood a chance. One got thrown in Lake Andrews, the other was used as a battering ram at various houses around campus. College leaders accepted it all with equanimity. “I’m pleased that we had such a good reason to tear the goal posts down," said Stephen Sawyer, associate dean of students. 

Running back P.J. McGrail ’98 was the star of the game, carrying the ball 33 times for 231 yards and two touchdowns. Mike Holte ’97 and Brendan Cullen ’98 teamed up to make the game-clinching tackle of the Bowdoin quarterback as time expired. Holte finished his collegiate career with 430 tackles, a Bates record.

In a twist that’s quite fitting for New England small college football, Bowdoin’s head coach was Bates legend Howie Vandersea ’63. For the Bowdoin skipper, the loss was another heartbreaker during the 1995 season.

In an essay about his senior season of football at Bowdoin, Michael William Flaherty recalled the post-game scene. “While pulling off my shoulder pads, I looked over and saw our coach, Howard Vandersea, standing among equipment bags, helmets, and clusters of mud, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. A sturdy 6-foot-5 frame, with white sideburns and strawberry blonde hair, he was hard to miss. As my eyes caught the image of him, leaning against the locker room wall that day, I remember seeing a line of tears running from his left eye to the middle of his jawline.”

Bowdoin did go on to beat Colby the next week, giving all three teams a share of the CBB title. Even though Vandersea was leading the Polar Bears, he said one thing remained the same: “There’s nothing better than beating Colby.” 

The Mark Harriman Era

Vandersea served as the head coach at Springfield College from 1976 to 1983. His first recruit was a linebacker out of Maine’s Westbrook High School named Mark Harriman.

In 1998, Bates hired Harriman as the 19th head coach in the football program’s history. He led the Bobcats for 20 years, mentoring countless athletes along the way. Only Bob Hatch has had a longer tenure as the team’s head coach. 

In Harriman’s second season, the Bobcats went 4–4 and captured the CBB title. Their four victories in 1999 topped the number of wins in the previous eight years combined. Quarterback and team co-captain Matt Bazirgan ’00 broke the program record for total yards in one season with 1,679, while wide receiver Jason Coulie ’00 set a pair of Bates single-season records that still stand today. He tallied 63 catches for 852 yards in a remarkable campaign that saw Coulie finish his Bates career alongside Larry DiGiammarino '82 as arguably the two greatest wide receivers in program history.

Coulie was selected by the Anaheim Angels in the ninth round of the 2000 MLB draft and played four seasons of minor league baseball. He joins Kevin Murphy ’77, another Bates football and baseball player, as the only two MLB draft picks in the college’s history. 

Bazirgan, meanwhile, headed to the NFL, and is currently director of college scouting for the Buffalo Bills. Bates football has quite a bit of representation on the sport’s biggest stage, with Michael Lopez ’04 (son of Tom Lopez ’69) serving as the NFL’s senior director of football data and analytics and Sam Francis ’17 working with the Cincinnati Bengals as the team’s football data analyst. 

With Bazirgan and Coulie lighting up the scoreboard on the offensive side of the ball, linebacker and co-captain Frost Hubbard ’00 continued to be a force on defense. The 1996 NESCAC Defensive Rookie of the Year, Hubbard actually recorded a career-low 69 tackles as a senior. But that simply reflected how much more talented Bates was overall as a defensive unit. Despite teams gameplanning around him, Hubbard was named as an All-America honorable mention in 1999 by D3football.com. 

Harriman called Hubbard “one of the best defensive players I have ever coached,” a high compliment from a man who had been a successful defensive coordinator at Princeton and Harvard before coming to Bates. 

The 1999 season also witnessed the debut of one of the greatest running backs in Bates history. Sean Atkins ’03 first stepped onto the field against Amherst, as the Bobcats won their season opener 19–7 for their first victory over a team from outside the state of Maine since 1990.

“I had a nice punt return block in that game, which I remember vividly,” Atkins says. “The blindside block I delivered isn’t legal anymore, but it was really fun. I remember thinking to myself after we won and the fans tore down the goalposts, ‘Man I made the right decision coming to Bates.’” 

A defender in high school, Atkins became a record-breaking running back at Bates. The 1999 Bobcats were very experienced, but even as a rookie he showed his potential, scoring three touchdowns in a win over Bowdoin. 

By the time his sophomore year rolled around, Atkins was the featured back, and the Bobcats gave him the ball — a lot. When it was all said and done, Atkins carried the ball 584 times at Bates over the course of his career, a program record. He used a combination of power and speed to accumulate 2,729 career rushing yards, the second-most in Bates history. 

Atkins is probably most well-known for his game against Bowdoin in 2002. In that contest, he ran for 302 yards and scored an almost inconceivable NESCAC record seven touchdowns. Bates won the high-scoring affair 48–28, Atkins was featured on ESPN, and the Class of 2003 finished their four years at Bates a perfect 4–0 against the Polar Bears. 

“The holes were huge, and I just had to run through them,” Atkins says. “I always wanted the ball. I felt like every time I touched the ball I was going to make something happen. To this day, I like reminding any Polar Bear I see about that game.” 

After the season, Atkins was part of a Division III all-star team that faced the Mexican National Team in the 2002 Aztec Bowl in Torreon, Mexico. He became the first Bates player to perform in a postseason bowl game since the 1946 Bates team faced Toledo in the Glass Bowl. Atkins carried the ball eight times for 39 yards and the Division III all-stars were victorious by a count of 15–9.

Atkins credits his offensive line (naturally) and his head coach for his success at Bates. 

“As any athlete knows, when somebody truly believes in you, it brings out the best in you,” Atkins says. “Coach Harriman believed in me, and as a man he has probably had the most profound impact on my life.”

Despite the game-wrecking ability of all-time Bates sack leader Terence Ryan ’07, the Bobcats struggled to win games in the mid-to-late 2000s. Garcelon Field did get featured in Sports Illustrated in 2006, with first team All-NESCAC running back Jamie Walker ’07 battling 4.62 inches of rain, the mud, and Colby defenders. Walker carried the ball 43 times that day, which unfortunately resulted in a 10–7 loss in four overtimes to the Mules.

By the 2010 season, it was clear that change was needed, in more ways than one. 

Garcelon Field was “stuck in a time warp,” said the Sun Journal, compared to the new buildings that surrounded it on the Bates campus. A major fundraising push resulted in a FieldTurf surface, Musco lights, and a new grandstand, press box, and scoreboard. 

Meanwhile, the Bates offense needed a refresh. So in 2010, Harriman and the Bobcats started running the triple option. After some growing pains, the new-look, but also old-school, offense paid big-time dividends. 

In 2012, Bates posted their first winning season since 1981. They finished 5–3 overall, and won their first outright CBB Series title in a decade. The offense averaged just over 27 points per game, a Bates record. Meanwhile, the defense, led by three-time All-NESAC selection Andrew Kukesh ’14, was incredibly opportunistic. Bates intercepted 19 passes in 2012, also a program record. Their 32 total takeaways that year is still tops in team history. On top of that, the Bobcats were also excellent on special teams, with Charlie Donahue ’14 making all nine of his field goal attempts.

“When our quarterback Trevor Smith ’13 sat in my office and I told him we were going to the triple option, the look on his face wasn’t exactly ecstatic,” Harriman recalls. “But all credit to him. He really embraced the change and led us to one of the best seasons in recent Bates football history.” 

Indeed, Smith had made his first career start against Colby as a rookie in 2009, setting Bates records at the time with 31 completions for 361 yards in a loss to the Mules. By the time he was a senior and running a much different system, Smith had become an All-NESCAC quarterback.

Standing on the field after their season-ending win over Hamilton, Smith reflected on his career.

"We just wanted to keep getting better and better, and we did that,” Smith said. “I'll be back here next year, too, to watch these guys keep it going. I wish I could keep playing."

The Bobcats did keep it going in 2013 and 2014, posting four-win seasons both years. It marked the first time Bates football had finished with a winning percentage of .500 or better in three straight years since the 1977 to 1979 stretch.

And from 2014 through 2017, the Bobcats did something even the great Jim Murphy-led teams never did: win four straight CBB titles. Bates played quite well against their in-state rivals with Harriman at the helm, particularly against Bowdoin. The Bobcats went 13–7 against the Polar Bears from 1998 to 2017. 

Harriman finished his time at Bates having stabilized the program, and as columnist Kalle Oakes of the Sun Journal wrote, the head coach “developed a culture and sense of pride that Bates will benefit from for the next 20 years and beyond.”

“Mark Harriman is all about accountability and discipline,” Atkins says. “Right from my first conversation with him, I knew Bates was where I wanted to be. He’s a great leader of young men.” 

The Next 150 Years

Under current head coach Matt Coyne, both Bates football and the New England Small College Athletic Conference are entering an exciting new era. Since NESCAC’s founding in 1971, conference football teams have been ineligible for postseason play. That changes in 2026, when the NESCAC champion will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs. 

The rule change couldn’t have come at a better time for Bates football, again on the upswing under Coyne’s forward-looking leadership, including a robust improvement in recruiting success. In 2024, Bates defeated eventual NESCAC champion Wesleyan and also knocked off Middlebury.

For 150 years, Bates football hasn’t been defined by championships or national rankings. Instead, it’s been about people: players, their coach-mentors, and the college community. Together, they’ve competed together and cheered together, creating stories and friendships for a lifetime. 

From the first game in Maine in 1875 to road trips, rivalries, and the occasional national spotlight, the program has carried with it the spirit of the Bobcat: small in numbers, maybe, but big in heart and never afraid of a challenge.