“By the somewhat arbitrary decree of the Football Writers' Association of America, there are this fall 112 ‘major college’ football teams in the country. All the rest, some 624 of them, are ‘small college,’ a misleading phrase that provides a convenient catchall for enrollments ranging from 300 to 15,000. The small-college category has, in fact, nothing at all to do with a school's size but only with the quality of football competition it schedules.

One need only watch some small-college games to know there is nothing little league about the football. The NFL certainly didn't think so last winter when it drafted 50 athletes from the small colleges on the reasonable assumption that a few of them will prove as worthy as predecessors like Roosevelt Brown and Andy Robustelli of the Giants; Ed Brown, Willie Galimore and harlon hill of the Bears; and John Baker of the Rams.

This year they will be drafting more. In fact, Guard Doug Brown, a 1960 Little All-America who has a year to go at Fresno State, has already been selected by both the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Texans. There are three other Little All-Americas (second team) returning this fall who will bear close watching—West Chester (Pa.) State Fullback Joe Iacone, for instance, the stubby, broad-armed young man shown above. As a sophomore Iacone crushed the bid of Northeast Missouri's Dale Mills to win his third straight national rushing crown. Last fall he gained nearly a mile (1,438 yards, to be exact), finishing the season with a wild, 199-yard day against Lock Haven.”

West Chester State College was typical of small college ball in the late 1950’s and early-‘60’s with most of its players coming from the surrounding locales. New York City area players often made their way to West Chester, Wilkes, Lock Haven, and the other “small” schools that dotted the football friendly environs of Pennsylvania. Iacone however, stood out and when my cousin introduced me to what looked like a short mound of muscle, I was a bit overwhelmed. Still in junior high school, my fortuitous meeting with this Little All American came at a time when having a football hero served an extremely positive purpose. That he gave me a “gee whiz, work as hard as possible, and do everything right” lecture only served to make my admiration for him stronger. Needless to say, I became a follower not only of his career which eventually wound its way through the Philadelphia Eagles as their eighth round draft choice and camp with the Patriots, but also of small college football and those who made the Little All American team. He served as a long time coach at The Haverford School and was a revered member of the faculty until his retirement in 2008. This one player was the spark that made me aware of small college football and that expanded to an interest in the local Long Island schools. That Hofstra and C.W. Post Colleges played an excellent brand of football throughout that same time period, opened up an entirely new and unknown world.