Father to Fremont Cannon to be remembered at game
Tuesday, Sep. 25, 2007 @ 1:20 am
Although Bill Ireland, the man credited with introducing the Fremont Cannon, is no longer around to watch the Nevada-UNLV matchup, he will still be a part of Saturday’s rivalry game.
Ireland, who coached the Rebels’ inaugural team from 1967 to 1973, died July 31 in Reno at the age of 80.
Rebel football players are wearing a decal “I” on their helmets throughout the season to memorialize Ireland, who led UNLV to a 26-23-1 record in its initial years.
“He was a true Nevadan,” said Jeanne Ireland, Bill Ireland’s wife. “He was loyal to both schools.”
Jeanne Ireland will be given a UNLV football helmet with the decal commemorating her late husband at the Rebel’s team dinner Friday before Saturday’s game, she said.
Nevada Athletics Director Cary Groth has also invited Jeanne Ireland to attend the game as her guest, Groth said.
Bill Ireland graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1952 and served as the school’s first graduate assistant for the athletics department.
After a coaching stint at Fernley High School, he returned to Nevada as the freshman football coach and varsity baseball coach in 1960.
But Ireland’s first major coaching job came in 1967 when he was lured down south to lead the inaugural UNLV football team to an 8-1 record.
Ireland came up with the idea to make a replica of the howitzer cannon that explorer John C. Fremont abandoned in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1844. It’s served as the trophy for the Nevada and UNLV rivalry since 1970.
In 1969, Ireland took the Rebels up north to take on the Wolf Pack. UNLV lost the first game, but returned the following year to beat Nevada and claim the Fremont Cannon on its first appearance.
Ireland retired from his coaching job in 1973 with a 2-2 record against the Wolf Pack.
The last game Ireland attended was in 2005, the year the Wolf Pack retrieved the Fremont Cannon after losing to the Rebels for five years, Jeanne Ireland said.
Bill Ireland wanted to see a cordial rivalry between the Rebels and the Wolf Pack – Jeanne Ireland said.
“The one thing Bill deplored was the animosity that has come on in recent years,” Jeanne Ireland said. “He wanted sportsmanship in the field and in the stands.”
Jeanne Ireland, who lives in Reno, said she wears red to just one game each year – the Nevada-UNLV game – and blue to the rest.
“That’s our firstborn baby,” she said of the UNLV football team.
The Fremont Cannon was included at Ireland’s memorial service in the Silver and Blue room at Lawlor Events Center in August.
“I think he’s respected in both parts of the state,” said Jerry Koloskie, senior associate athletics director at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Bill and Jeanne Ireland had seven children and 16 grandchildren who have attended both Nevada and UNLV.
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