1958 UB football team not the only one...

[promotherobot]

...that turned down a bowl bid because of racial discrimination.

]http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2007/12/24/daily19.html]

The 1951 University of San Francisco football team were offered a bowl bid but only if they left their two black players behind.  The answer, as it was in Buffalo, was no.

PTR

[BrooklynBull]

The reality is that the 1951 USF story is much more well known than the UB story.  USF was undefeated in 1951.  On the team were four future NFL Hall of Fame players.  There probably would have been a fifth in Burl Toler, Sr.  However, Toler was injured and never made it as a player in the NFL.  However, he did go on to become the first African American official in the NFL.  One of the players on that 1951 USF team was future UB coach Bill Dando.

The most important person in football affiliated with the team was a student publicist, who probably created the modern Sports Information Departments.  This fifth person also made it to the NFL Hall of Fame.  The person was Pete Rozelle.

[CTBullsfan]

This part of the story makes it even worse....

Due to the associated financial burden on the school that a bowl bid would have alleviated, USF's finest football team ever was to be its last in Division I. Though football made a brief comeback as a Division II sport during the 1960s and 1970s, USF has not fielded a varsity team since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Dons

[xDerekRx]

That is a sad tidbit. You figured with that type of prestige it would have gotten more help. I still enjoy watching the Dons and their green jerseys play in late basketball games in the Zags conference.