Jim Peelle (Veteran)

James Peelle came to the University at Buffalo after a successful college football career. Peelle was a 3-year starting quarterback for Purdue and led the Boilermakers to two Big 10 Championships and was named All-Big 10 quarterback in his junior and senior seasons.

Following his graduation, he joined staff at the University at Buffalo as an assistant coach in 1934. Two years later he was named the head coach and athletic director. In his nine seasons as coach, he compiled a record of 38-34-1. His 1947 squad went 8-1, scoring 258 points and giving up only 79. Peelle was noted for playing Leeland Jones, the first African American player in Bulls history, against Johns Hopkins University in 1942.

Under his leadership as the athletic director, the Bulls’ 1958 football team declined an invitation to the Tangerine Bowl, because the host organization was going to prohibit UB’s two African-American players to compete in the game.

Peelle also served as the school’s baseball coach in 1949, and from 1952-67, and during this time he revised the entire program. Not only did he manage the team to a 187-74 record as the skipper, he also led the construction of the baseball field at the university’s Main Street campus. He literally cut down the trees and built the first backstop himself.

As the athletic director from 1936-1969, Peelle established the university’s presence in major intercollegiate competition in several sports, and for that he is widely recognized as the “father” of modern intercollegiate athletics at UB.

In 1968 Peelle became the first honorary member to be inducted into the UB Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1972, the baseball field on the Main Street campus was named in his honor, and in 1984 the field on the school’s Amherst campus was dedicated to him.

James Peelle passed away in 1976 in Amherst, NY.