Here are 15 unsolicited, heavily nostalgia-based reasons why the UCLA Bruins should not leave the Rose Bowl for the glitz and glitter of SoFi Stadium:
• Because the late Keith Jackson, legendary broadcaster, called the Rose Bowl “The Grandaddy of Them All.” And it is.
• Because there is a statue there of Terry Donahue, the late, legendary Bruins coach, who was there either as a player, assistant coach or head coach in six of the Bruins’ 12 Rose Bowl appearances. Donahue remains the winningest coach in Pac-10 Conference history with 151 victories. (Note: The Pac-10, which became the Pac-12, no longer exists. From the leather helmet days, right up to 2024, the Pac-10 was a conference of major West Coast universities, featuring players who went to class sometimes because they didn’t have to fulfill marketing obligations for the advertisers and alums who pay them handsomely to do so. That was also before the people who ran the conference saw gold in “them ‘thar hills” — meaning Chicago, where there are no hills but there is the Big Ten central office. Money speaks and the Pac-12 at the time was all ears.)
• Because the Rose Bowl was built in 1922 for $272,000, or about the cost of remodeling your kitchen in San Dimas now. The first Rose Bowl game at the venue was played in 1923 and it remains the 20th largest stadium in the world and the 11th largest in the country.
• Because when the 1993 Super Bowl was played in the Rose Bowl, Michael Jackson took the stage at halftime and, joined by thousands of children — and to a country captivated by the emotion — sang: “We Are the World … We Are the Children…” Also, “Heal the World.” It was a stunning performance by an international superstar and it remains the most tuned-in halftime show (133.4 million viewers). After that, the Super Bowl halftime show became a huge deal, as we all know now. Next up: Bad Bunny.
• Because, in 2007, Sports Illustrated called the Rose Bowl the No. 1 college sports venue in the country. Yes, that was almost 20 years ago, but you know what they say about fine wine.
• Because, with only a few exceptions, New Year’s Day has always dawned in Pasadena like a real estate agent’s dream. Warm and sunny, the mountains glimmering in the distance. People walking about in shirtsleeves. About 5 p.m. Eastern time, the TV sets click on, people from Kansas to Connecticut looking out their windows at snow piles, and the next morning, phones ring off the hook in real estate offices from Pasadena to Pacoima. Population explosion in Southern California has, for years, been blamed on beaches and orange groves and local celebrities. The Rose Bowl rates a mention.
• Because in 2006 during the national championship game, between Texas and USC — one of the best title games ever between two of the best college football programs ever — the Longhorns’ Vince Young took a direct snap on fourth down and five with 18 seconds left and USC leading, 38-33, and ran eight yards into the northwest corner of the end zone for a 39-38 lead. He was greeted there by a hug from the huge Longhorn mascot, just before a Longhorn two-point conversion made the final score, 41-38. USC had its chance minutes earlier to keep the ball on a short yardage play and run out the clock. It failed, and to this day, Trojan fans have wanted to ask coach Pete Carroll why, on the play that LenDale White was stopped, superstar running back Reggie Bush was on the bench.
• Because in the 1999 Women’s World Cup soccer final, played in front of 90,185 that was a world record attendance for women’s sports and was decided in a penalty kick against China, U.S. star Brandi Chastain made the winning kick. Then she celebrated by tearing off her jersey, leaving only her sports bra, and creating a photo and a celebratory memory that remains iconic in the history of women’s sports worldwide. There is a statue of Chastain and that moment at the Rose Bowl.
• Because in the fall of 1996, Northwestern’s football coach, Gary Barnett, with his team on an early roll that few took seriously because Northwestern had been a Big Ten doormat forever, encouraged his team to “take Purple to Pasadena.” That created mostly giggles and wisecracks. The sports editor of this very paper told Helene Elliott, a columnist at his paper and an excited alum, that if her team made it to the Rose Bowl, he would “run naked through the newsroom.” Stunningly, Northwestern made it, eventually losing a close Rose Bowl game to USC. Elliott, acting for the greater good, refused to collect on the pledge.
• Because covering the Rose Bowl was one of Jim Murray’s favorite days. He loved to see, and write about, the thick-legged, bulky players from places like Iowa and Wisconsin, coming to town to play the USC or UCLA track team in football gear. He’d love it when a Trojan wide receiver would run his route, passing his defender like a lightning bolt, and then stand in the end zone and wave to his quarterback to throw him the ball. So many one-liners in those moments. The Rose Bowl was also special for Murray, a rare sports-writing, Pulitzer-prize winner for The Times, because every year with different teams came new local sports writers. Murray loved to talk to the young writer from Keokuk, Iowa, or Madison, Wis., who would inevitably make their way down press row to introduce themselves before the game to their idol. Because Murray had suffered a detached retina and feared another, occasionally triggered, he was told, by any sudden movement of his head, other Times staffers at the game had a quiet assignment. One of them would stand at his side with the bad eye, so that all the young reporters approaching him would do so from his good side.
• Because for golfers there is almost nothing like finding your ball in a sand trap, resting against an empty beer can. This needs explanation. The Rose Bowl is surrounded by 36 holes of the Brookside Golf Club. It is where Rose Bowl attendees — for UCLA games, Rose Bowl games, Super Bowls, soccer games — park their cars. They tailgate, party and eventually walk into the game. It is a big part of what makes events in the Arroyo Seco so special. It is also a headache for the workers who must get the golf course in shape for hundreds of rounds of golf the day after a game — sometimes, in just hours after a night game. Truth is, the Brookside people do an incredible job. They clean and rake and turn what was the site of dozens of touch football games and barbecues into a golf course. Tire tracks from big RVs are smoothed as best they can. Piles of trash are collected. Brookside is not a goat path, as golfers occasionally call poorly maintained courses. But things do slip through the cracks, and nobody has yet to determine whether a ball resting against an empty beer can be lifted and replaced or if it is a one-shot penalty.
• Because in the 1987 Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl, The Times sports section decided to take overkill journalism to new heights. It had 14 staff reporters there, but also a new wrinkle. A famous author named Leon Uris, who had written best-selling novels “Exodus” and “Trinity,” had agreed, for $10,000, to write a story in advance of the game between the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos and a story after the game. He did fine on the preview story, and showed up ready and eager in the press box for the game. He was seated between two Times’ legends, Murray and fellow columnist Jack Smith. Well after the game ended and all the stories from all the writers had been sent, only Uris’ story was missing. When approached, he showed that he had about half a dozen paragraphs done and was cursing his fate as a newspaper deadline writer. “You have me sitting next to these two pros,” he said. “They write so fast and so good. I can’t do this. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to write my books?” With that, Uris, who died in 2003, left the Rose Bowl press box, never to be seen there again.
• Because Pat Haden and J.K. McKay, great friends and each with great senses of humor, teamed up on the winning touchdown pass for USC over Ohio State in the 1975 Rose Bowl and carried their version of the moment to hundreds of banquet speeches over the years. Haden: “I’d go back to pass and I’d look around and on one side was one of the greatest athletes and receivers in the history of the game, Lynn Swann. On the other side was McKay. So I threw it to McKay because he was the coach’s kid (John McKay was USC’s coach).” J.K. McKay’s version: “I lined up, took off on a great route and was wide open. It took forever for the ball to get to me and it was tough to catch because the quarterback was so short and you couldn’t pick it up right away coming out of the backfield. Most of the time, I couldn’t tell if he threw the ball or punted it.”
• Because in a packed house at the Rose Bowl before a 1994 World Cup soccer game, Gov. Pete Wilson was introduced at opening ceremonies and was asked to speak. As soon as he was introduced, he was booed. Throughout his three-minute speech, he was booed. He had supported Proposition 187, which aimed to take away many services then enjoyed by undocumented immigrants. The boos rocked the place before Colombia played, and lost to, Romania. Prop 187 passed but was eventually ruled unconstitutional.
• Because Stephen A. Smith, who has reshaped America’s broadcast sports journalism from what you report to how loud you do so, has come out in favor of UCLA moving to SoFi.
The post Here are 15 reasons why UCLA should not abandon the Rose Bowl appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
