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The North Alabama Lions football team represents the University of North Alabama in NCAA Division II competing as a member of the East Division of the Gulf South Conference (GSC). UNA plays its home games at Braly Municipal Stadium in Florence, Alabama. They were coached by head coach Terry Bowden from 2009-2011. He succeeded Mark Hudspeth, who left after the 2008 season to take the job as passing coordinator at Mississippi State. The Lions are distinguished as the only team to win three consecutive football national championships in NCAA Division II. UNA's 27 consecutive weeks at #1 in the Division II polls also comprise the longest stretch of consecutive No. 1 rankings in football in NCAA history on any level. UNA is the last Division II team to beat a Division I-A (FBS) team, beating Southwestern Louisiana (now UL-Lafayette) on October 11, 1997. The Lions won 48-42 after going to 4 OT's. ==History== Based on a history compiled by RoarLions.com, the university’s official athletic Web site, football had an especially inauspicious beginning at the University of North Alabama. The institution’s first football game in 1912 ended with Florence State Normal School losing to Sewanee, 101-0. The institution carried on with a football program for 16 years despite similar poor results, finally terminating the program in 1928 after losing twice to Marion Institute, 86-0 and 85-0. The program was not resumed until 1949, when President E.B. Norton announced that Florence State Teachers College, as the institution was then known, once again would field a team. At the first pep rally for the new team, Dr. Norton told the student body that the school had not lost a football game in 20 years and did not want to start losing then. Nevertheless, the first game, played Sept. 29, 1949 against Jacksonville State, resulted in a 12-7 loss. Florence State rebounded in the next game with a 28-7 win over Howard College (now Samford University). Dr. Norton told the Flor-Ala student newspaper on January 5, 1949 that a football team was important not only for school spirit but also because a teachers college should have facilities to train coaches for the public schools. In an interview with the Florence Times-Daily in 1994, Dr. Norton recounted the football team's role at a critical juncture in the college's history. Wendell Wilkie Gunn, the first African American graduate of Florence State, registered in 1964. In the wake of the protests and violence that attended integration at other southern colleges and universities, Dr. Norton called the football team together and said he expected a peaceful and welcoming atmosphere on the Florence State campus. He charged the football players to set the appropriate example as leaders of the student body. Mr. Gunn matriculated and graduated in four years without incident. Dr. Norton stated that the football team's contribution to the successful integration of the institution justified his original vision of the program, in a way he could not have foreseen in 1949, and exceeded even the program's considerable achievements on the field (which by the 1990s included several national titles). The Lions also have won numerous Gulf South Conference Championships since the 1980s.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「North Alabama Lions football」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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