QUINTIN JAMES
Staff Writer
When you think of Fredonia, you probably think about the college, Lake Erie and a small suburban town. If you are a sports guy, then you probably know that a lot of people in Fredonia are Bills fans because the stadium is 35 minutes away.
The passion and love for the Bills in Fredonia is one of a kind, and a reason for this is because once upon a time, the Buffalo Bills had their training camp in Fredonia.
The Bills held their annual training camp on Fredonia’s campus from 1981–1999. During that time, the Bills had their best years record-wise, and in the 90s, they went to four straight Super Bowls. The glory days in Buffalo were happening when they had training camp in Fredonia.
The Bills practiced near Dods Hall before there was a road constructed. Before University Stadium was built, it was also open grass where they used to practice.
They would stay in the dorms on campus and use the Erie Dining Hall for breakfast, lunch and dinner. During the golden years, people would line up on the fences just so they could watch their beloved Bills.
They would even scrimmage against other teams such as the Steelers, Packers and Browns in Fredonia, which was a great experience for people living in a small town in western New York.
From talking to people around town who were alive and can remember when the Bills were in Fredonia, they said that it was great for the community and gave a lot of exposure to the campus and the town.
One person who knows a lot of the Bills time in Fredonia and had a lot of memories to share was current sports information director Jerry Reilly.
Reilly was working as a reporter for a newspaper company when they had the press conference announcing the move to Fredonia for training camps. He recalls how excited everyone was when they start got here. The crowd’s attendance dipped in the mid-80s until future star quarterback Jim Kelly signed, and everyone was back to packing Fredonia every summer.
Kelly was a fan favorite among the crowds that would gather to watch the training camp practices. Talking to an older man in Dunkirk this week, he remembers why people were so in love with Kelly.
“He brought so much energy to the team and to the franchise. It was great that a star QB can be so humble and kind. He was one with the people,” he said.
When talking about how the players being here affected the town, Reilly said. “The economy benefited from them being here. The Bills liked it here. They enjoyed the quiet community and would often walk around town to the bars and restaurants.”
Reilly also had a lot of working relationships with the players, including linemen Jim Richards, who was a private pilot and would fly his planes around Dunkirk and the surrounding areas.
One of the stories Reilly talked about was a folk tale about how the Bills came up with their famous “K-Gun” offense which led them to four Super Bowls. It started from Bills Quarterback Coach and Offensive Coordinator Ted Marchibida.
While playing basketball in Dunkirk at the local high school with his college coach, Mike Orbinati, he would pick his brain about football, and one day, Orbinati told him about the hurry-up offense that would be known as the K-Gun offense.
The K-Gun offense was an up-tempo offense that instead of huddling up, the QB would run to the line of scrimmage and call out colors and numbers. The defense can’t catch a break or find out the play and it creates havoc after a while.
Marchibida used this scheme while working for the Bills, and it worked extremely well with offensive stars like Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed running the show. Even though people don’t know who made up the offense originally, the Bills and Marchibida made the offense relevant.
Another person who witnessed the Bills training camps in Fredonia is Director of Athletics Greg Prechtl. Prechtl said he loved having the Bills in Fredonia.
“Everyone loved them in town. It was nice to see professional athletes around town. It was very good for business back in the day,” said Prechtl.
The Bills being in Fredonia meant that sometimes the athletic staff would help the Bills out. Prechtl explained how an athletic trainer for Fredonia at the time, Bud Carpenter, started helping assist the Bills training staff and that they enjoyed him so much, they hired him to be their athletic trainer.
The Bills, while training in Fredonia, gave the small town a lot of exposure and clout. Newspapers and TV stations would be in town to see the team and people knew about Fredonia. It benefitted greatly from the extra people it welcomed during training camp.
Nowadays, not a lot of people remember the Bills having training camp in Fredonia. The Bills left for St. John Fisher in Rochester in 2000 and haven’t made the playoffs since then.
While Fredonia has changed since 1999, there’s still a select few who remember the 90s and the good times Fredonia experienced during the summers of training camps in Fredonia. People know the Bills probably will never come back to Fredonia for training camp, for many reasons, but everyone agrees that Fredonia would welcome them back with open arms.