Written by Doug Goodnough
Seventy years is a long time. But Dave Trippett, ’58, still remembers. He was a standout player on a standout team, one that became legendary more for what it did off the field than on.
And that’s saying something.
The 1955 Hillsdale College football team finished the regular season 9-0 and dominated the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. In fact, the Dales were being considered for a New Year’s Day bowl game in Orlando, Florida. Then-Hillsdale Head Coach Frank “Muddy” Waters even traveled to Orlando to lobby for his team’s invitation, which would have been the first in program history.
It would have meant everything for the team to play in the Tangerine Bowl, which in essence was a national championship game featuring the best small-college teams in the country. So, when Hillsdale finally received the invitation, it quickly became news around the Midwest.
However, there was one huge caveat: Hillsdale could play, but the four African American players on its roster could not. It was the climate of the time in the segregated South.
“Muddy called the team together and said, ‘Do we want to still go to the bowl game?’” Trippett said.
After a team meeting and vote, Muddy had his answer.
“We voted no,” Trippett said. “If they aren’t going to take us all, then we are not going. We had a good team, a great team, and we could have done all right in our bowl game. Probably could have won it.”
Although devastating to not be playing in the postseason, he said the team never looked back on that decision.
“It cemented us a little more together,” Trippett said. “Muddy had the best interests of his players at heart. He believed in the players that he recruited and instilled in us the drive to win, to play the best we could.”
In fact, Trippett said the 1956 team that also finished with a 9-0 record might have been even better. In 1957, his senior year, the unbeaten Dales accepted and played in their first bowl game, falling in heartbreaking fashion to Pittsburg State, 27-26, in the Holiday Bowl.
Trippett said Muddy built his program with talent from all backgrounds. Two of his top players and eventual Hillsdale Hall of Famers, tailback Nate Clark, ’56, and end Andy Kincannon, ’57, were African American. He also had several NCAA Division I transfers and military veterans on his roster.
Trippett was the former, transferring after one season at Michigan State University to Hillsdale to play for Muddy, who was his high school coach in Albion, Michigan. The 6-foot, 215-pound two-way lineman earned All-American honors for the Dales.
“We looked after each other. We were very mature. Most of us played both ways, because [Muddy] wanted the best players out there all the time,” Trippett said. “And our second team was almost as good as our first team.”
Drafted in the 17th round by the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams in 1957, Trippett turned down a professional football career for one in teaching and coaching.
“My knees were so bad, and back in those days, you didn’t get guarantees,” said the sociology major of his decision to forego the NFL. “And I had a teaching job.”
The 90-year-old Trippett, who was later inducted into Hillsdale College Athletic Hall of Fame, returned to his alma mater to coach and teach. In fact, he was an assistant for the football program and a sociology professor for the College for several years before deciding to work in the prison system.
He eventually moved to Sault Ste. Marie to become a deputy warden of a prison, then was warden at the Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer, Michigan.
His love of teaching never waned. He taught in Lake Superior State University’s criminal justice program before instructing prisoners for the intermediate school district near his Lapeer home before finally retiring in 2000.
He said he enjoys returning to Hillsdale, especially for the Athletic Hall of Fame banquets, and he is proud of the legacy of the 1955 team.
“We were just a good bunch of men doing what was right, and that’s the main thing,” Trippett said of his teammates.
By the way, that 1956 Tangerine Bowl was played, with the Juniata Indians and Missouri Valley Vikings competing to a 6-6 tie. Ultimately, there were no winners of that bowl game— at least on the playing field.
Editor’s Note: For more on the 1955 Hillsdale College football team and their decision to turn down a Tangerine Bowl bid, check out the online documentary A Better Kind of Glory: https://youtu.be/OWPE1BgDTDE?si=tSgwHGy4QHqyvJS4
1955 Hillsdale Dales (9-0 overall, 6-0 MIAA)
A Better Kind of Glory
Hillsdale 47, Anderson 6
Hillsdale 20, Eastern Michigan 6
Hillsdale 45, Olivet 6
Hillsdale 14, Albion 7
Hillsdale 27, Alma 20
Hillsdale 19, Hope 13
Hillsdale 41, Kalamazoo 7
Hillsdale 62, Adrian 7
Hillsdale 27, Lewis 13
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Reposted from the spring 2026 issue of Arete.
