FC San­ta Rosa pres­i­dent Kei­th Look Loy was on hand when Howard Uni­ver­si­ty cel­e­brat­ed the achieve­ments of two of its soc­cer teams (1974 and 1975) of which he was a mem­ber, over the week­end (No­vem­ber 1-3).

The teams, nick­named 'The Bisons' saw the con­ver­gence of mem­bers of yes­ter­year, who af­ter­wards, at­tend­ed sev­er­al com­mem­o­ra­tive events. Look Loy, who rep­re­sent­ed T&T in foot­ball at the youth lev­el, was ac­com­pa­nied by his wife Cathy Ann Look Loy.

On Fri­day (No­vem­ber 1), the Uni­ver­si­ty in­duct­ed the 1975 team in­to its Hall of Fame with a gala event that in­clud­ed in­ductees from sev­er­al sports. That team fought its way to the Di­vi­sion 1 semi­fi­nal, which it lost. Three T&T play­ers were mem­bers of that team - Neil Williams, Trevor Lei­ba and Look Loy. The coach was Lin­coln Phillips, al­so of T&T.

A day lat­er (No­vem­ber 2) the Uni­ver­si­ty's Caribbean Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion host­ed its 1974 team with a din­ner to cel­e­brate the fifti­eth an­niver­sary of its his­toric vic­to­ry in the NCAA Di­vi­sion 1 fi­nal that year.

The 1974 team played an un­de­feat­ed sea­son, win­ning all of its match­es, a record which has stood for 50 years. In ac­com­plish­ing this feat, Howard Uni­ver­si­ty be­came the first HBCU (His­tor­i­cal­ly Black Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties) to win a na­tion­al ti­tle in any sport. No oth­er HBCU has matched this achieve­ment.

Four T&T play­ers were mem­bers of that team with Ian Bain join­ing Look Loy, Williams and Lei­ba, a team that Lin­coln Phillips, a for­mer na­tion­al stand­out goal­keep­er al­so coached.

On Sun­day (No­vem­ber 3), the Uni­ver­si­ty al­so cel­e­brat­ed the 50th an­niver­sary of its 1974 NCAA Di­vi­sion 1 cham­pi­onship. The ti­tle-win­ning team was in­duct­ed in­to the uni­ver­si­ty's Hall of Fame in No­vem­ber 2014. A gala event was host­ed at the Black­burn Cen­tre on the uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus where for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er and Howard alum­nus Sha­ka His­lop de­liv­ered the fea­tured speech.

Mem­bers of the team al­so vis­it­ed the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um of African Amer­i­can His­to­ry and Cul­ture. A re­quest for the in­clu­sion of an ex­hib­it on the cham­pi­onship-win­ning 1974 team has been sub­mit­ted to the Mu­se­um and is un­der re­view.

Mean­while, the May­or of Wash­ing­ton, DC, Muriel Bows­er, wrote an of­fi­cial let­ter to the team, in which she praised the team for its "lega­cy of un­com­mon strength in over­com­ing ad­ver­si­ty" and its "tremen­dous im­pact...on the res­i­dents of the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia and be­yond".

Look Loy spoke to the cur­rent play­ers and chal­lenged them to match the achieve­ment of their 1974 and 1975 pre­de­ces­sors.

The suc­cess of the teams was a tri­umph for the African Di­as­po­ra and for the long strug­gle of black peo­ple for equal­i­ty and re­spect in Amer­i­ca. Sev­er­al mem­bers of both the 1974 and 1975 teams at­tend­ed this se­ries of com­mem­o­ra­tive events, in­clud­ing mem­bers from Bermu­da, Ja­maica, Nige­ria and T&T.