December 31, 2005
View From Lodi, CA: The
Rose Bowl—“Granddaddy of Them All”
By Joe Guzzardi
As a kid growing up in Los Angeles
during the 1950s, nothing was more exciting to me than
the
January 1st Rose Bowl.
Back then, Los Angeles had
no Dodgers, no Lakers, no Kings, and no Clippers.
The city had the professional football
Rams—an explosive team led first by quarterbacks
Bob Waterfield (married to movie starlet
Jane Russell) and then the taciturn “Dutchman”,
Norm Van Brocklin.
And the town—believe it or not Los
Angeles was a small town in those days—had two beloved
minor league baseball teams, the
Los Angeles Angels and the
Hollywood Stars.
But the
Rose Bowl, as a once a year event, was Southern
California’s sporting ne plus ultra. And for
people who couldn’t get into football, the
Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade was as thrilling
as the game itself.
From my early childhood until 1956,
the year my family left Los Angeles, we started each New
Year’s Day by watching the parade on our
tiny black and white television set.
And that family tradition carried
on no matter where we lived.
Over the course of the decades, one
famous
Grand Marshall after another led the annual parade.
Many were
Hollywood icons: Bob Hope (twice), Frank Sinatra,
Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck, Danny Kaye, Loren
Green, Shirley Temple Black, Lawrence Welk, Angela
Lansbury, Carol Burnett, John Wayne and
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
Others were
athletes: Hank Aaron, Merlin Olsen, Pele, “Chi
Chi” Rodriguez, Carl Lewis, and Arnold Palmer.
Even
politicians got into the act: Herbert Hoover,
Senator
Everett Dirksen, Senator John Glenn, Richard Nixon
(twice), Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower.
Once the parade ended, our focus
shifted to the game, fondly referred to as “The
Granddaddy of Them All”—meaning the biggest and the
best of the bowls. With the Rose Bowl attendance
averaging 102,000, no other game generated more
interest.
From its inception in 1947 through
2001, the Rose Bowl was played between the winners of
the Pac-10 conference (earlier the Pac-8) and the Big
Ten.
Fans automatically—and correctly as
it invariably turned out—anticipated that the midwestern
visitors would trounce the Pac-10 team. From 1947
thorough 1959, the Big Ten
won 12 of the 13 games.
As Californians focused on the Rose
Bowl, we had only a vague awareness that football had
been played that day in other parts of the country.
The final scores from the
Sugar Bowl, the
Orange Bowl and the
Cotton Bowl were all in before the Rose Bowl kicked
off.
Incredible as it seems today,
college football had only four bowl games. All were
played on January 1st.
I don’t have to tell you how much
else has changed.
Thankfully, one thing—the most
important thing—has not changed. The Rose Bowl players,
the Trojans’
Matt Leinert and
Reggie Bush and the
Longhorns’ Vince Young, are among the most
outstanding in the nation and will go down among college
football’s all-time best.
In 1982, then-Tournament of Roses President Harold E.
Coombes created the
Rose Bowl Hall of Fame to honor outstanding
individuals who have contributed to the Rose Bowl’s
success. Eligible for induction are players, coaches,
school administrators, athletic directors and conference
officials.
Among those already in the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame are
Stanford’s Jim Plunkett, Ernie Nevers, Frank Albert and
John Ralston; Southern California’s Charles White, O.J.
Simpson, Pat Haden and Pete Beathard; Illinois’ Buddy
Young and Dick Butkus and Ohio State’s Archie Griffin
and W.W. “Woody” Hayes.
Regardless of the outcome of the Trojan-Longhorn
showdown, you can be sure that
Leinart,
Bush and
Young will be added to the long list of great
players already in the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English
at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly
column since 1988. It currently appears in the
Lodi News-Sentinel.
