SAN DIEGO -- Jason Relyea was born in 1985 so there are times when events that occurred a quarter century before his birth seem ancient and hard to fully comprehend.

That's not the case with the tragic Cal Poly football team plane crash that killed 22 people, including 16 players, in 1960. Relyea, a Poway High graduate, and his current teammates pay tribute to the 1960 squad the day prior to each game by visiting an on-campus memorial rock.

The 46th anniversary of the plane crash falls on Sunday, one day after the Mustangs play San Diego State at Qualcomm Stadium.

"It's been a big part of our tradition here," said Relyea, a junior linebacker. "When you first come in as a freshman, you don't really know what that's all about. But each game we go to the rock and we go up and touch it for all the people who have fallen before us that helped bring the program to where it is.

"The program had to suffer for many years after that and now we fight each game to bring it back together. We use that as our motivation before each game to honor those that came before us."

Relyea thinks about how the 1960 team traveled to play a game against Bowling Green 46 years earlier, expecting to return safely to San Luis Obispo.

Only the 1960 squad didn't make it back as its plane, a C-46 Arctic Pacific, crashed shortly after takeoff in Toledo, Ohio.

The plane attempted to fly in thick fog and was less than 300 feet into the air when the left engine gave out. The plane then tipped to the right and landed in a nearby orchard, splitting in two pieces with the front half exploding.

So while at the memorial rock, Relyea reflects on how nothing in life is guaranteed.

"It really makes you relish in the fact that you get this opportunity and how fast it can be taken away," Relyea said. "It can all be gone. We have the talk 'Play the next play' because you never know what might happen to yourself or others on the team."

Last month, the entire 1960 football team was inducted into Cal Poly's athletic Hall of Fame. Granite plaques placed on copper pillars were unveiled at the newly dedicated Mustang Memorial Plaza inside the football stadium in remembrance of the 18 people associated with Cal Poly -- a team manager and booster also died -- who didn't survive the crash.

"The memorial that we dedicated a few weeks ago brings the whole experience to another level," Cal Poly coach Rich Ellerson said. "That was a really difficult week for the entire Cal Poly community, not just for our football team, because of the emotions and the memories. The families were back and it brought something that's always been a part of us to a new level of residence."

One of the 26 survivors of the plane crash was quarterback Ted Tollner. During his tenure as San Diego State football coach, Tollner described how he switched seats shortly before takeoff with star receiver Curtis Hill.

Hill wanted to sit up by the front instead of near the left wing. Hill didn't survive the crash and Tollner did.

"Everybody from my spot back lived," said Tollner, "and everyone in front of me did not live."

Pro Football Hall of Famer and television broadcaster John Madden was a Cal Poly graduate assistant coach at the time but didn't make the trip. The crash helped prompt his now well-known fear of flying and Madden takes a bus -- dubbed the "Madden Cruiser" -- to all his television assignments.

San Diego State receivers coach LeCharls McDaniel, who finished his Cal Poly playing career in 1980, was thrilled with the recent induction of the entire 1960 squad.

"Those guys are getting older and they did a heck of a lot for that school," McDaniel said. "To keep it all together after the crash -- some of them played football again, some of them didn't -- is one of the great human interest stories ever. You see a program go to its knees and then come back through the ashes and rise up again."

Contact staff writer Mike Sullivan at (760) 739-6645 or msullivan@nctimes.com.