When Arizona State plays host to Washington Oct. 13, it will honor and celebrate the 50th anniversary of its 1957 football team, which went 10-0 and ultimately helped to deliver something substantially more important than an undefeated season.

Due in large part to the regional visibility of head coach Dan Devine’s team that season, school president Dr. Grady Gammage was able to lead a public campaign to get Proposition 200 on the state ballet the following year.

When it passed by a 2-1 margin, Proposition 200 gave the school its long-sought official name change from Arizona State College to Arizona State University.

The referendum was vigorously campaigned against by supporters of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who wanted that school to remain the lone university in the state. The measure was defeated in just one county, Pima, where Tucson is located.

“It’s important to keep in mind that they were playing this 1957 season amidst all this turmoil of naming Arizona State College a university,” Arizona State senior associate athletic director Don Bocchi said. “All these athletes should be given credit for raising Arizona State up into the public eye in a very positive way. They weren’t thinking they were doing that when they were playing. But the fact they were 10-0 did raise this place up.

“Also that same year was [ASU basketball coach] Ned Wulk’s first year and he won the Border Conference championship for the first time ever. The track team then went and won the Border Conference championship, and a lot of those athletes on that team were football players. That football team meant a lot more to the institution than a lot of people today might realize.”

Not only did the undefeated season help ASU become a university, it helped justify a $115,000 expenditure made in late 1957 to purchase land north of the campus to build a stadium which would eventually replace 15,000-seat Goodwin Stadium.

In its final season at Goodwin Stadium before moving to the then-30,000 seat Sun Devil Stadium, the Devine-led squad not only went undefeated but also led the nation in total offense and scoring (39.7 points per game).

ASU shut out four of the teams it faced in that campaign and held four others to seven points or less. Its closest margin of victory was nine points in a 35-26 win over Hardin-Simmons of Abilene, Texas. The Sun Devils finished the season ranked No. 11 nationally, inside of the top 20 for the first time in school history.

The 1957 team was also the last of three coached at the school by Devine, who arrived in 1955 from Michigan State and led the Sun Devils to a 27-3-1 record during his tenure before accepting a job at Missouri.

“Dan was a very intelligent guy,” said legendary ASU coach Frank Kush, a Devine assistant at the school from 1955-57 before taking over as head coach in 1958. “He was unique from the standpoint of getting the most out of players. He could recognize talent. He could be tough, but his personality wasn’t about being a disciplinarian in a fundamentalist sense. He was about as knowledgeable a coach at getting the maximum out of not only his players but his coaches as any coach you’ll ever see.

“He would know each one, almost like he had a biography on every coach and every player. He would know what motivated that individual and what he needed to do. He would also recognize their limitations. That’s the key also. He did a great job of giving you responsibility within the framework of your maturity.”

Devine was an assistant coach at Michigan State in the early 1950s, where Kush earned All-America honors and helped the team to a national championship in 1952. When Devine was hired by Arizona State three years later, Kush followed after a stint as head coach at Fort Benning.

“We had great athletes then,” Kush said of the early ASU teams he worked with as an assistant to Devine. “In fact, when I first came here, I was not that far removed from playing on a pretty good football team where we only lost one game in three years at Michigan State and were national champs, but when I saw these guys, I thought, ‘Holy cow, they could play for us at Michigan State.’”

Some of the team’s standouts were wing back Leon Burton, halfback Bobby Mulgado, quarterback John Hangartner and offensive linemen Bart Jankans, Dave Fonner and Ken Kerr, the later of whom Kush considered a “moose” at 6-2 and approximately 240 pounds. Kerr was the biggest of the team’s linemen, a clear indication of how football has changed in the last 50 years.

“These guys were phenomenal coaches,” said Jankans, a co-captain in 1957 who played left tackle at 175 pounds. “Everything they told you to do, we did and that’s how we went undefeated. Coach Devine was a tough coach, but he was good. He told you what to do in a positive manner. He taught you how to be proud of yourself. He was an exceptional coach. He and Coach Kush taught you how to block and how that would create holes in the line.”

Jankans said that at the time, he and his teammates had little understanding of what impact their efforts would have on the school’s campaign to become a university, but they’ve had the opportunity to talk about it over the years, and reflect on the achievement with a great sense of accomplishment.

“A lot of us were all poor guys from back east, Pennsylvania,” Jankans said. “We would travel across the country by car. At the time we didn’t know what it meant. The coaches made us proud and that is what made the difference. It was just incredible. These were some of the finest guys you could play for.”

Jankans and a number of his teammates will be in attendance in Tempe for the University’s honoring of the 50th anniversary of the team. It’s a moment he’s been looking forward to for quite some time.

A Season For The Ages: 1957 (10-0)

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