By: centraljersey.com
BORDENTOWN CITY – School days and dear old golden rule days will be on the minds of Bordentown Military Institute alumni as they return to the city for their reunion on Saturday.
But more than readin’ and ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic, they’re actually going to be preoccupied with football and one of their own who made the Big Time.
That’s because Pro Football Hall of Famer and BMI graduate Floyd Little plans to return for the reunion celebration and parade.
The alumni parade, with Mr. Little and city Mayor James Lynch in the lead convertible, starts around 2 p.m. at the Bordentown Home for Funerals parking lot at Crosswicks Street and proceeds to a statue honoring past BMI cadets at Park Street where Mr. Little will place a wreath.
The BMI reunion dinner will be held later in the day at Hilton Garden Inn in Hamilton.
Ray Price, of Prince Street, a fifth generation Bordentown resident, said his father, who died in 1982, was a custodian and groundskeeper at BMI when Mr. Little was there. Mr. Price said he met Mr. Little in1995 and that the former running back remembered his father fondly.
"It was pretty important to me that Floyd Little remembered my dad," Mr. Price said.
His father died when he was 12. When Mr. Little played at BMI, Mr. Price remembers as a 7-year-old being taken by his my dad to all the games to see Floyd Little play.
This February when the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced the running back was one of the inductees, "you must have heard me scream," he said at the time.
Mr. Little, now 68, was the first African-American to attend BMI, graduating in 1963, according to Mayor Lynch, also a BMI alumnus who watched the future national phenom play in Bordentown.
"It seemed that every time he touched the football, he scored a touchdown," the mayor marveled. When Mr. Little left BMI, according to Mr. Price, he had 47 college scholarships. He was inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, this August.
Flags bearing Mr. Little’s name with the numbers he wore at BMI, 77, and for Syracuse and the Broncos, 44, were paid for by Mr. Price. One flag is hung at City Hall and the other at the closed BMI site on Park Street.
BMI moved out of town in 1972.
His legendary 44 number was retired by both Syracuse and the Denver Broncos.
A three-time American football All-American at Syracuse University, Mr. Little was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983.
He was drafted by the Denver Broncos where he led professional football in rushing from 1968 to 1973.
In 1975 he received a law degree from the University of Denver. Now a Washington state resident, he is retired, having owned several car dealerships.

