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| Michigan defeated Stanford 49-0 in the Tournament of Roses football game in 1902, which is widely considered the first Rose Bowl. |
One of the longest-running events in
the current American pop-culture calendar is the Tournament of Roses with its
iconic parade and annual football game known as the Rose Bowl. The first Tournament of Roses took place in
1890, but when was the first “Rose Bowl” game played? The answer is not as easy as one might think.
By one measure, the first Rose Bowl
was the 1902 game in which the University of Michigan defeated Stanford by the
score of 49-0. It was the first college
game and the first East-West intersectional game held at the Tournament of
Roses, but it was a one-off, not part of a continuous series of games now known
as the Rose Bowl. And it was not
referred to as the “Rose Bowl” at the time.
By another measure, the first Rose
Bowl was the 1916 game in which the University of Washington defeated Brown
University 14-0. That game was the first
in the unbroken series of Tournament of Roses football games now known as the
Rose Bowl. For the first seven years of
the series, it was known as the “East-versus-West” or “East-West” game. In the 1930s, syndicated columnist Erskine
Johnson noted that the 1902 Michigan-Stanford contest was not “counted in
modern Rose Bowl records,” suggesting that at the time, at least, the general understanding
was that the “first” Rose Bowl was technically the Washington-Brown game of
1916, the first game of the annual series.
By a yet another measure, the “first”
Rose Bowl might reasonably be considered the first Tournament of Roses East-West
Game played in a stadium called the Rose Bowl.
The Rose Bowl stadium was not completed until October 1922, and the
first Tournament game played there was the 1923 match-up between the University
of Southern California and Penn State, which USC won by the score of 14-3.
But even that game was not contemporaneously
known as the “Rose Bowl.” Early examples
of the expression “Rose Bowl game” were not strictly limited to the Tournament
of Roses football game. Other games not
related to the Tournament of Roses were occasionally played in the Rose Bowl during
the football season, and those games were frequently referred to as “the Rose
Bowl game,” the expression being merely descriptive of a game to be played in
the Rose Bowl stadium. But within two or
three years of playing in the stadium, the expression came to be used as the
name of the Tournament of Roses game itself.
Although nearly all of the so-called
Rose Bowl games (before and after the stadium was built) involved colleges or
university teams, two early games involved teams not associated with any
college or university. Two Tournament of
Roses football games played during World War I featured military teams other
than the Military Academies. In 1918,
the Marines of Mare Island defeated the Army soldiers of Camp Lewis19-7, and in
1919, the Navy sailors of Great Lakes Naval Station downed the Marines of Mare
Island 17-0. Presumably all of those
players had some training and experience in high school or college, but were
not representing those schools in the game.
The designation of “first” Rose Bowl should therefore not be limited
merely to games between colleges or universities.
So when was the “first” Rose Bowl
played? If the game did not have to be
contemporaneously referred to as the “Rose Bowl” (like the 1902, 1916 and 1923
games), did not have to be played in a stadium called the “Rose Bowl” (like the
1902 and 1916 games), did not have to feature two college teams (like the 1918
and 1919 games), and did not have to be one of the continuous series of games
started in 1916 (like the 1902 game), then there is one more candidate that may
lay claim to the honor of having been the first-ever “Rose Bowl” game – the
1890 contest between the Pasadena Football Club and the Wilson School that
capped off the events of the first Tournament of Roses on January 1, 1890.
But does that game qualify as a “Rose
Bowl”? You be the judge.
The First Tournament of Roses
Two weeks prior to the first
Tournament of Roses held January 1, 1890, a local newspaper predicted:
[C]hances are that the events of January 1st next
will prove so popular that a New Year’s Day tournament will become a settled
feature in the list of the town’s annual occurrences. – Los Angeles
Times, December 19, 1889, page 7.
Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1889, page 7.
Those words were prophetic. Pasadena, California has hosted the
Tournament of Roses on January 1st every year since 1890.[i]
Then as now, the Tournament of Roses
capped off the day with a football game, arguably the first “Rose Bowl.” The teams were not successful college teams
invited to showcase their talents, but recently organized local squads of
interested locals, although some of them with significant (for the time)
training and experience, playing against and even beating teams like Cal
Berkeley and USC.
A game of football between the first eleven and a picked team
of Pasadena boys ended the sports of the day. . . . The foot-ball team played a
fine game, and are proportionately lame today.
Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1890, page 7.
The “first eleven” were adult members
of the newly-formed Pasadena Football Club.
The “picked team of Pasadena boys” was composed of students at the
Wilson School, a local high school.
Pasadena won the inaugural Tournament of Roses football game by a score
of 12-0.
The game was new in Pasadena at the
time; both teams were less than two months old.
Early Football History
The game of American football itself was also relatively new at the time. Princeton and Rutgers played the first game of intercollegiate “football” in 1869, but under rules that more closely resemble what Americans call soccer today.
The American game developed among a
small cadre of Eastern universities, chiefly Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn,
during the following decades. They
adopted Rugby rules in the mid-1870s, making it more like modern American
football, but it wasn’t until the early 1880s that they instituted the two
rules that changed Rugby into the distinctly American game.
In 1880, they eliminated the Rugby
scrum in favor of the scrimmage rule, under which the team in possession of the
ball keeps the ball on successive downs, initiating play from the line of
scrimmage by snapping the ball. An
unintended consequence of the new rule was that a team in possession of the
ball could keep possession indefinitely if they did not lose possession. In the famous “Block Game” of 1871, Yale and
Princeton played to a scoreless tie, each team holding the ball for an entire
half without change of possession.[ii] Princeton claimed the “championship” based on
their last win over Yale in 1878; Yale claimed the “championship” based on
playing a better game against Harvard that year. Yale’s argument prevailed in the short-term,
but football historians are still divided on the question, like the Monday Morning
Quarterbacks who annually question the four teams who qualify for the Football
Bowl Subdivision Championship Playoff.
In 1882, they adopted a
down-and-distance rule to give the offense an incentive to move the ball. The new rule required that a team gain at
least five yards in three plays to retain possession of the ball. The rule is still in place today in modified
form today, now requiring the offense to move ten yards in four plays or lose
the ball.
Early California Football
The year 1882 is also the year American
football came to California. In the
first known game played in California, on December 2, 1882, a team called the
Phoenix defeated the University of California by the score of 2 tries to 1 goal,
under an archaic scoring system. The
popularity of the game flourished, with four or five teams competing with one
another for Bay Area-football supremacy over the next few years.
The death of a Berkeley law student
named Michael E. Woodward put a temporary damper on enthusiasm for the game in
the spring of 1886. Woodward was a local
boy, a graduate of Oakland High School (1880), who studied for two years at
Toland Medical College (now the University of California San Francisco), followed
by two years at Yale University, before entering Hastings School of Law School at
Berkeley in 1885. He would likely have
been exposed to football in some fashion at Yale, although he does not appear
to have been a member of their varsity team.
Woodward died from injuries sustained
while stopping a sure touchdown in what was described as a “practice game”
between informal, “picked” teams.
Woolsey, ’86, by a beautiful run had nothing between him and
a “touch-down,” so close was he to the “goal line,” unless the “full-back”[iii]
by sheer force, could stop him. Woodward
made an excellent “tackle” and stopped his man, but in doing so he was struck
on the top of the head as he bent over by Woolsey’s knee. Both fell, and both were found disabled. Woolsey’s leg was merely strained so that he
was unable to play more. Poor Woodward,
however, was found to be paralyzed from the stomach down.
Oakland Tribune,
March 12, 1886, page 2.
He died a few days later.
 |
Decatur Herald
(Decatur, Illinois), March 21, 1886, page 1.
|
The popularity of the game picked up
steam again in the fall, with the formation of several new teams and a new
league, the Amateur Football League of California, with the Wide-Awakes of
Oakland, Alerts of Brooklyn, Unions of San Francisco, and the Orients of
Berkeley competing for a championship.[iv]
Two members of the Orients would later play
in the first Tournament of Roses football game in 1890.
Organized American football reached
Southern California on April 28, 1888, when the Alliance Football Club of Los
Angeles, “composed in great measure of pupils of the High School,”[v]
beat a team from Long Beach by the score of 26-6 in a game played in Santa
Monica.[vi] The University of Southern California played
its first game a few weeks later, a tie-game against the Alliance Club played at
the corner of Hope and 9th Streets in Los Angeles.[vii] USC downed the Alliance 18-0 in a rematch at
the same location on June 9.[viii]
Football in Pasadena
Football came to Pasadena on March
18, 1889. The University of Southern
California defeated the Alliance Club by the score of 14-4, in a game played at
Sportsman’s Park.[ix] At the time, Pasadena did not have its own
club. A local writer complained that, “Pasadena
is the only city in the United States which is destitute of a means of
enjoyment for young men. . . . No ball
club, no organized cycling club of considerable number, no foot-ball club . . . . It is time some attention was paid to
these things and an effort made to organize a local athletic club, where
innocent sport could be indulged in.”[x]
Things changed in November.
Clarence Barnes is getting up a football team – a good
idea. Mr. Barnes and City Clerk Cambell
should talk it over.
The Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1889, page 7.
At their first intra-squad scrimmage
a few weeks later, “Capt. Conger, with his team of 11 good men and true, won a
score 16, while Capt. Mosher, with his team of 15, contented themselves with a
big cipher.”[xi]
Not to be outdone, the schoolboys of
the Wilson School, a Pasadena high school, organized their own team in early
December.
The Wilson Grammar-school cadets have determined to
exterminate each other, and to that end have organized a foot-ball team.
The Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1889, page 7.
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| "Men of Muscle," The Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1889, page 7. |
The Wilson schoolboys were presumably
new to the game, but the Pasadena Football Club had several members with
experience in organized football programs.
Mr. Mosher and H. W. Conger formerly played on a strong team
at Berkley, where the State University is located. . . . Homer Young, the
team’s captain, was a former member of the Andover (Mass.), eleven, and E. C.
Conger has had considerable practice in the game while connected with the
Phillips Academy team in Massachusetts.
Mr. Clarence Barnes also played for a time with a strong eastern eleven.
Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1890, page 7.
It is unclear where Clarence A.
Barnes studied or played football, but he was born in Rhode Island and arrived
in Pasadena from Boston, Massachusetts at about the age of 21 in 1888, so he
clearly had the opportunity to have experienced the game in or near the hotbed
of Eastern football.
As for E. C. Conger and Homer Young, Andover
and the Phillips Academy were both feeder schools to the Ivy League schools
like Harvard, Yale and Princeton where the American game was born and
flourished, so they likely had good training and experience.
A large part of the material for the college [football] teams
come from the eastern preparatory schools.
Phillips-Andover and Phillips-Exeter furnish the greatest number of men
and the best. Exeter supplies Harvard,
and Andover, Yale.
Vermont Watchman and State Journal (Montpelier, Vermont), December 5, 1888, page 4.
But it’s not clear how much
experience they had. Homer Young (Pasadena’s
team captain), for example, left Sioux Falls, South Dakota for Andover in the
fall of 1888,[xii]
so he may have had no more than one year of training. Others, however, had more significant
experience.
Ed Mosher and H. W. Conger played
together as linemen on a football team in Berkeley, California in 1887, but not
for the University of California. In
1887, they played for a local club team called the “Orients.”[xiii] Ed Mosher later played a role in establishing
the oil and gas industry in Santa Barbara.
Less than one year after the first “Rose Bowl” game in 1890, he and his
brothers struck natural gas while drilling for artesian water at Ortega Point,
six miles from Santa Barbara. They offered
the gas for sale to residents “at $10 per year per house.”[xiv]
The following season, Harold Ward
Conger played without Mosher on another amateur team in Berkeley called the
“Posens.” Initially called the
“Volunteers,” they were rechristened the Posens when an actor named M. B.
Curtis, stage name “Samuel of Posen,” sponsored the team and bought them new
uniforms after seeing their first game.
A few years later, “Samuel of Posen” was famously acquitted of murdering
a policeman in downtown San Francisco after a night of heavy drinking.
The Posens played in a three-team
California Football League with the University of California Berkeley and a
club team called the “Wasps,” from San Francisco. At the end of the season, the Posens claimed
the much-disputed “undisputed championship” of California; the disputes arising
from the game-clock, scheduling, and fake news.
Depending on whose version of events accepts,
the Posens may be the only team in history to have beaten the University of
California football three times (in four tries) in one season. The results of two of those games were
disputed; the official California Golden Bears Football Record Book for 2019
lists only two of those games, a win and a loss. Fans of the Posens would disagree.
The Posens (playing as the
Volunteers) defeated the University in their first meeting on February 25, 1888
by a score of 10-6. The Posens broke a
6-6 tie late in the game with a touchdown, which were then worth four
points. At the time, the game was played
with a continuously running clock, without time stoppages. The Posens scored a touchdown near the end of
the game to take the lead, but the clock continued ticking down and time
expired before the Posens could kick their goal-after-touchdown. A good kick would added two more points,
leaving the score 10-6 instead of 12-6. The
outcome of this game was not in dispute because the Posens held the lead before
time expired. But the continuously
running clock would play a role in the disputed championship later that season.
The University evened the series at
one game apiece, besting the Posens by the score of 14-0 in their second
meeting on March 17 in front of a “large crowd of merchants, students, dudes,
reporters, and other laborers that lined the ropes.”[xv]
The Posens took the third game, dethroning
the University as Champions of California for the first time in five years – or
did they?
THEY ARE CHAMPIONS NO MORE.
For five years the University team has held the championship
in football in this State. But now its
glory has departed, and the club is a shattered relic of departed worth. The Posens met this heretofore almost
impregnable football phalanx and made an unfixable dent in it. Actor Curtis now has the pleasure of knowing
that his club holds the championship of the State.
Oakland Tribune,
April 9, 1888, page 7.
With the clock counting down at the
end of the second half, the Posens had a one-score lead, either 5-0 or 6-0
(accounts differ).
Then just about ten seconds before time was called the
Universitys scored a forced touch down, but time did not permit a try. The Varsity boys are sore over their defeat.
Oakland Tribune,
April 9, 1888, page 7.
Touchdowns were then worth four
points, which could be converted to six points with a successful
goal-after-touchdown kick. Reports of
the game differ as to what the final result would have been. The San
Francisco Examiner reported the final game score as 6-4, which would have
meant a possible tie if the University had converted the
goal-after-touchdown. But the Oakland Tribune reported the Posen’s
only score of the game a field goal, “the best long distance kick ever made in
Oakland,” which would have counted five points under the scoring conventions of
the time, in which case the University could have won the game with a two-point
conversion.
The League sustained the University’s
formal protest, and a rematch was scheduled for May 19 – or was it? On May 19, the Oakland Tribune reported that the University had scheduled the game
without consulting the Posens who would refuse to play until a mutually
acceptable date could be arranged. But nevertheless,
on the following Monday the same paper carried a report of the rematch,
complete with the score and team rosters, and declaring the Posens the
“undisputed champions” of California.
THE CHAMPIONSHIP SETTLED
The University team and the Posens played off the contested
football game Saturday. The Posens
claimed the championship of the league, but when the protested game was decided
against them they were tied with the University team. By the game Saturday all disputes are settled
– or should be. After some hard playing
the Posens came out victors by a score of 10-6. They are now the undisputed champions of this
State.
Oakland Tribune, May 21, 1888, page 6.
The results of that
game would have settled matters – but only if the game had actually been
played. In a letter to the sports editor
of the Tribune, a University player
named F. A. Allardt claimed it was all a lie.
The University Football team has been
the victim of many misrepresentations in the newspapers of Oakland and San
Francisco. The latest injustice is an
article which appeared in The Tribune and several other papers. This was the report of a supposed game of
football between the Posens and the Universities, on Saturday, May 19th. The Posens are reported victors, and declared
champions of the State. The game was not
played, and the Posens are not champions.
From all that can be learned the Posens will forefeit the deciding game,
and the Universities will be champions.
Oakland Tribune, May 23, 1888, page 5.
The difficulty in
determining the champion in a three-team league makes the difficulties a
century later in determining the “National Champion” of the NCAA’s Division I Football
Bowl Subdivision look like rocket science in comparison.
The players in the first Tournament
of Roses game also had more recent experience in the weeks leading up to the
first Tournament. On Thanksgiving Day
1889, barely two weeks after their first practice, the Pasadena Football Club
played a game against the University of Southern California, losing 26-0 at
Sportsman Park in Pasadena. The team paid
its humiliation forward, beating up on the high school boys of the Wilson
School 42-0 on December 21. The teams
played again on December 28th, a warm-up for the Tournament of Roses
with no score reported.
Despite the lopsided loss to USC on
Thanksgiving Day after just two weeks of practice, the Pasadena Football Club
proved that they were not just pushovers one month to the day after the first
Tournament of Roses. On February 1,
1890, Pasadena exacted a measure of revenge, handing USC its first loss ever.
The Pasadena foot-ball team was given a big send-off Saturday
evening upon their return from Los Angeles, where they defeated the University
team in a well-played game by the score of 8 points to 2. . . .
Those who witnessed the game say the playing of the Pasadena
men was strong throughout, and at times a brilliant play would be made that
surprised even their most enthusiastic admirers. . . .
Pasadena enjoys the distinction of being the first team to
administer a defeat to the Los Angeles eleven.
The Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1890, page 7.
Participants in the
first Tournament of Roses game were schooled in the football hotbeds of the
East Coast and had experience playing in the cradle of California football in
the Bay Area. They had legitimate
football training and experience playing with and against top-flight competition,
including teams like Berkeley and USC, both schools that would later compete in
numerous Rose Bowls. At the time, with American
football in its relative infancy, some Pasadena players had as much training
and experience as anyone anywhere. It is
therefore not unreasonable to consider the football game of the first Tournament
of Roses worthy of the designation “first-ever Rose Bowl.”
On New Year’s Day 1890, at the close
of the first-ever Tournament of Roses, the Pasadena Football Club defeated the
Wilson School by the score of 12-0 in what is arguably the “first Rose
Bowl.” It may have been first, but it
did not immediately spawn the series that would ultimately bear the name “Rose
Bowl.” It was nearly a decade before the
next football game would be scheduled at the Tournament of Roses, and more than
a decade until the next game would take place.
New Year’s Football
But it wasn’t the last New Year’s Day
football game played during the 1890s. Beginning
with the first Tournament of Roses game between Pasadena and Wilson High School,
Football games were played every New Year’s Day of the 1890s up and down the
West Coast,.
On January 1, 1891, the Oakland
Football Club held an intra-squad exhibition of Rugby football in Alameda, the
A team beating the B team by one goal. A
team from Los Angeles was scheduled to play the Olympics of San Francisco on
January 1, 1892. The game was postponed
due to rain until January 3, when the Olympics downed Los Angeles 18-0 (or
22-0, accounts differ). That same year,
Portland defeated Tacoma 24-0, in a game played in Tacoma on New Year’s Day.
The University of Southern California
defeated a “picked” team from Santa Monica, 48-4 in Santa Monica on January 2,
1893 (the Tournament of Roses took place the same day, a Monday, because New
Year’s Day fell on a Sunday). Stanford
travelled to Portland, Oregon for a New Year’s Day game in 1894, defeating a
team called the Multnomahs by the score of 16-0.
A couple days before New Year’s Day 1895,
Stanford played in what may have been the first East-West intersectional game
played in played in Southern California, a forerunner of the Michigan-Stanford
game at the Tournament of Roses in 1902 and the Tournament’s annual East-West
games (later named the “Rose Bowl”) first held in 1916. The large crowds proved
the concept and may have inspired the Tournament of Roses’ later attempts to introduce
such games on a more regular basis.
On December 29, 1894, Stanford
defeated the University of Chicago by the score of 12-0 before a crowd of 2,500
in a game played in Los Angeles.
 |
Chicago and Stanford Players, The Los Angeles Herald, December 30, 1894, page 7.
|
Chicago might be forgiven the
loss. They were then in the middle of a grueling
four-game western tour. They had
defeated Stanford handily four days earlier, 24-0 at the Haight Street Grounds
in San Francisco. They would lose again,
6-0 against the Reliance Athletic Club in San Francisco on January 1st,
and would defeat the Salt Lake City YMCA 52-0 on January 4th.
When Chicago returned to San
Francisco for its game against the Reliance, Stanford remained in Los Angeles
for its own New Year’s Day game, beating up on the Los Angeles Athletic Club
football team 26-0.
 |
The San Francisco Examiner, January 2, 1895, page 5.
|
The Tournament of Roses scheduled its
next football game for January 2 1899 (New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday that
year). The game was mentioned in the
pre-Tournament schedule, but it does not appear to have been a contest between
major colleges, as the names of the teams were not announced.
There will be bicycle races and a
football game in the afternoon.
The Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1899, page 15.
The game was never played, a
victim of a rare Tournament of Roses rainout.
RAIN AT LOS ANGELES.
LOS ANGELES, Cal., Jan. 2. – A drizzling rain began falling
here at an early hour this morning, and has continued throughout the day. The precipitation is light but continuous,
and the indications are for a generous downpour. The unpropitious weather has spoiled the
preparations for the tournament of Roses at Pasadena, and the programme of
festivities at that place has been postponed.
Oakland Tribune,
January 2, 1899, page 4.
The parade was held that day, but it
started late and was cut short again when the rains returned at 4:30 pm, which
was already too late to start a football game at a time without a lighted
stadium.[xvi]
“A Pretty Effect with Germaniums and Smilax Seen Through the
Rain.”
Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1899, page 10.
The rainout in Pasadena did not
affect other games scheduled in California the same day. Berkeley and the University of Southern California
both played that day, but separately. The University of Southern California
played a disputed game in Santa Barbara, either winning by a score of 5-0 (as
USC claimed) or finishing in a tie (if you believe Santa Barbara). Berkeley dismissed Visalia that day by a less
controversial score of 23-0.
Three years later, the Tournament of
Roses finally got around to hosting its second football game, its first since
1890. This time it would feature two
major college teams in an East-West intersectional game, the same format later
adopted for its annual series of games beginning in 1916. Many consider the 1902 game to be the “first”
Rose Bowl.
The First Rose Bowl?
In November 1901, the Directors of
the Tournament of Roses proposed a plan to create a permanent home for the
Tournament. As part of the plan, they
hoped to erect a permanent grandstand for a football game, receipts from which
would help generate enough money to make the Tournament of Roses Association
fund “self-supporting.”
[President James R. H. Wagener said this evening] “We will have
$5000 in hand by January 1. This will be
in addition to the amounts collected from the street grand stands and the grand
stand at the football game. We expect to
raise enough money in this manner to secure this permanent sportsman’s park,
the receipts from which from year to year will perpetuate the Tournament of
Roses Association fund and make it self-supporting.”
The Los Angeles Times, November 14, 1901, page 15.
This plan to make the Tournament “self-supporting,”
in part through proceeds from a football game, may mark the beginning of the
annual “Rose Bowl” football game concept, so perhaps it is reasonable to
consider the 1902 game to be the first “Rose Bowl.” But even though it marked the beginning of
the concept, the plan would not come to fruition for fifteen more years. They were plagued by scheduling difficulties
and perhaps a desire to avoid the one-sided defeat suffered by the western
representative in the inaugural game. The
football games also became less necessary for continued financial success when
they found a surprisingly profitable replacement to fill the grandstands –
chariot races.
As of mid-November of that year, they
were “assured of Berkeley being here,” and expected them to “play either the
Carlisle Indians or the University of Michigan team.” In the end, however, Berkeley declined,
opening the door for Stanford, and Michigan accepted the invitation.
On January 1, 1902, the University of
Michigan clobbered Stanford, 49-0, in the first-ever East-West college football
game at the Tournament of Roses.
|
"Michigan 49 - Stanford 0," San Francisco Call, January 2, 1902, page 5.
|
 |
"Stanford Gets the Ball on the One-Yard Line," Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1902, Section 2, page 4.
|
 |
"A Michigan Buck Through Tackle," Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1902, Section 2, page 4.
|
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| "There was also a football game in which Michigan was observed to score frequently" - Los Angeles Herald, January 2, 1902, page 4. |
 |
| “Hail to the Victors.” The Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1902, Section 2, page 3. |
Despite the financial success of the
game, fourteen years passed before the Tournament hosted another football game. The delay wasn’t entirely to avoid the
embarrassment of another blowout by an Eastern school. Tournament organizers tried to arrange games
nearly every year in the interim, but without success. They invited Wisconsin to play Berkeley or
Utah State at the 1903 Tournament, but the game never materialized.
The management of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association
has scheduled a game between the elevens of the Wisconsin and Utah State
universities for New Year’s Day, but the contest promises little, so far as any
genuine struggle for gridiron honors is concerned.
The Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1902, page 11.
A Michigan-Berkeley game nearly materialized
for the 1906 Tournament of Roses, although technically the game would have been
played before New Years, on December 30, so as not to interfere with the
profitable the chariot races.
Pasadena, Nov. 2. If
present plans do not miscarry the famous football eleven of the University of
Michigan will play the eleven from Berkeley in Pasadena at the time of the
coming Tournament of Roses. . . . The
game will be played on Saturday, December 30, at Tournament park. It is deemed impossible
to have the great gridiron contest and the chariot races upon the same day.
Los Angeles Herald, November 3, 1905, page 14.
Despite Michigan’s agreement to play,
Berkeley declined – as did Stanford.
Los Angeles Herald, November 17, 1905, page 6.
Although it was not the only reason
for the delay in reinstituting football, the 49-0 blowout was still on some
people’s minds. In late-1909, in
preparation for the 1910 Tournament, Michigan expressed a willingness to
return, but this time to play against another Eastern powerhouse like Princeton
or Harvard, or failing that, possibly an all-star team of current Berkeley and
Stanford Rugby players (Berkeley and Stanford abandoned American football for
Rugby in 1906), or a team of former California all-stars selected by a local
Los Angeles football coach named Walter Hempel.
 |
Los Angeles Times, November 3, 1909, page 22.
|
 |
Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1909, page 7.
|
By some it is advocated that an Eastern football team be
brought out here to play in an exhibition game as the feature of the
afternoon. This would cost over $1000,
and unless the game was a contest, backed up by rivalry, resultant from an even
match, it would be a farce. It is our
hope that it may be found feasible to take the same amount of money which a
football event would demand and devote it to a Roman chariot race. . . .
From start to finish the race will be run in strict
conformity to the famous chariot race in Bun Hur, even to the dropping of balls
as the circuit of the course is made.
Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1903, page 19.
“A Chariot” at the Tournament of
Roses, Los Angeles Times, January 2,
1904, page 15.
The “winning heat” at the 1908
Tournament of Roses. Los Angeles Herald,
January 2, 1908, page 2.
The chariot races were run almost
exactly as shown in later film versions of “Ben Hur,” with nearly-deadly accidents,
heroic rescues, and criticisms of animal and human cruelty.
“The runaway chariot – vaquero
seizing the frightened horses – Driver E. T. Off under the wheel.” Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1906, page
14.
Just as his fingers closed in a death grip of the runaway’s
bit, the frightened chariot horse veered in a fierce leap from this new
terror. Wiggins’s horse was flung over
against the team.
There was a sickening, confused crash. The horses stumbled and plunged on again with
a broken chariot tongue which presently rammed like a lance point into the soft
ground of the track.
On this as a pivot, the wrecked chariot flung a prodigious
somersault.
The marks on the track show that it made a leap of thirty-six
feet high through the air. At the zenith
of its flight, Off was hurled out.
The horses dragged the chariot for a little way, crippled and
torn and skidding along on its side.
Then they tore free and ran away in good earnest, galloping furiously
round the track with the broken shaft remnants dangling between them and making
them wilder at every step.
As they dashed on, they left Off, a sorry, fallen Roman, in
their track. He was unconscious and very
still.
They had hardly picked him up and got him off the track when
the runaways came on round the track again, this time curbed and held down by
three vaqueros.
Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1906, page 14.
CHARIOT RACE “ISSUE.”
There seems little question that an “issue” will be made over
the continuance of the Roman chariot races at the park for the next Tournament
of Roses. . . .
Those who will object to the chariot races seem to have more
than one handle to hold up their argument.
The frenzied running of the fours, the bitterness inculcated by the
intense rivalry, the whipping of the horses, the charge of fouling, and the
almost miraculous escape from death of one of the drivers New Year’s Day, are
all pointed out as reasons why there should be no more chariot races.
Those who object to the races aver that the Tournament of
Roses is drifting away from its original scope of simply exhibiting beautiful
flowers in the winter time.
Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1906, page 23.
Despite the danger, the chariot races drew large crowds and
remained an iconic part of the Tournament of Roses for twelve years.
 |
| The Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1914, page 15. |
East-West Game
The last chariot races were held in 1915. But
instead of reverting to simply exhibiting beautiful flowers, they replaced the
animal violence of chariot races with the human violence of American college
football.
This time however, instead of
inviting one of the several undefeated Eastern juggernauts, they invited a
respectable, if less-than-intimidating, three-loss team from Brown University
to face the undefeated team from Washington State.
Members of the wonderful Washington State University football team who will meet the members of the equally powerful Brown University team of Rhode Island as one of the feature attractions at the Pasadena Tournament of Roses on New Year's Day. The game will take the place of the time-honored chariot races.
The Pomona Daily Review (Pomona, California), December 27, 1915, page 8.
Washington State defeated Brown 14-0
in the inaugural, annual Tournament of Roses football game, the first in a
continuous, unbroken line of annual games now called the Rose Bowl. In the early days, it was generally referred
to as the “East-versus-West” football game or simply, “East-West” game. The game, or at least the stadium, would not
be called the “Rose Bowl” until 1923, after completion of their new,
bowl-shaped stadium.
The Rose Bowl Stadium
The new stadium’s name resonated on several
levels. The word “Bowl” in the name was descriptive
of the shape of the stadium, designed along the lines of Yale’s new stadium
completed in 1914, the first bowl-shaped stadium in the country.
The Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana), November 20, 1920, page 7.
The word “Rose” in the name echoed
the name and theme of the Tournament of Roses.
The full name “Rose Bowl” imitated the name of Yale’s new stadium, the
“Yale Bowl.”
The Los Angeles Times, December 30, 1923, part VI, page 1.
And finally, the full name “Rose Bowl”
was itself the name of a type of vase commonly used to display cut roses – a
“rose bowl.”
 |
The Inter-Ocean
(Chicago, Illinois), February 9, 1896, page 36.
|
 |
The Vancouver Daily World, June 10, 1897, page 12.
|
 |
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 13, 1922, page 10.
|
 |
Stockton Daily Evening Record (Stockton, California), December 28, 1922, page 15.
|
In 1923, the 10-1-0 University of
Southern California beat a 6-4-1 Penn State team by a score of 14-3 in the
first East-West Game of the Tournament of Roses to be played in a stadium
called the “Rose Bowl.” It may look as
though the organizers were again trying to tilt the field in favor of the West
Coast representative, but to be fair, they invited the 7-1 Nebraska Cornhuskers
fresh off a season-ending win over Notre Dame, handing Notre Dame just their
second loss in four season.
Early examples of appear to refer merely
to the stadium the game was played in. The
transition to referring to the game itself as the “Rose Bowl” occurred naturally
over the next few years.
 |
Monrovia Daily News, December 15, 1922, page 18.
|
Showing McKee of the Navy, making first touchdown in
international clash against University of Washington out on the Pacific coast
in the Pasadena rose bowl.
Reading Times
(Reading, Pennsylvania), January 10, 1924, page 8.
The tickets for the Rose Bowl game are less expensive than at
any previous time in the history of the Tournament East-West games . . . .
San Pedro News-Pilot (San Pedro, California), December 21, 1923, page 1.
It is believed certain that Notre Dame will be the team to
play here on the Rose Bowl game, as Knute Rockne’s squad was tendered the
opportunity several weeks ago at which time the invitation was accepted.
The Bulletin
(Pomona, California), November 27, 1924, page 3.
Santa Ana Register (Santa Ana, California), January 2, 1925, section 3, page 1.
Conclusion
In determining which game was the first “Rose Bowl,” one might name the 1923 game between
USC and Penn State because it was the first game actually played in the Rose
Bowl, or the 1916 game between Washington and Brown, because it was the first in
the continuous annual series of East-West showcase games, or the 1902 game
between Stanford and Michigan, because it was the first collegiate game played
during the Tournament of Roses with the specific intent of making money for the
Tournament of Roses.
But if the concept of the first-ever
“Rose Bowl” is not linked to the stadium, the name, or intent, it makes as much
sense as any other to designate the first football game played during the
Tournament of Roses as the first “Rose Bowl.” In which case, the the game played between Pasadena
and the Wilson School during the first Tournament of Roses in 1890 would be the first “Rose Bowl.”
[i]
The Tournament is held the day after New Year’s Day when January 1st
falls on a Sunday.
[iii]
I believe the “full back” on defense was what we would call the safety
today. At the time, players played both
ways, and the “full back” (the running back the furthest from the line, as
distinguished from the “quarter” and “half” backs) on offense would also be the
furthest back defensive player on defense.
[iv] San Francisco Chronicle, October 12,
1886, page 3.
[v] Los Angeles Herald, March 16, 1888, page
5.
[vi] Los Angeles Herald, April 20, 1888, page
3.
[vii] Los Angeles Herald, May 24, 1888, page 2
(game scheduled for that afternoon); Los
Angeles Times, June 8, 1888, page 2 (rematch scheduled; previous game ended
in a draw).
[viii]
Los Angeles Herald, June 10, 1888,
page 2 (University of Southern California wins, 18-0). Interestingly, both of these games took place
nearly six months before the first official game results listed in the University
of Southern California Football Media Guide, a 16-0 win over the Alliance on
November 14, 1888. https://usctrojans.com/sports/2018/7/23/2018-usc-football-media-guide.aspx
[ix] Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1889, page
6.
[x] Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1889, page 6.
[xi] Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1889,
page 7.
[xii] Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, South
Dakota), September 6, 1888, page 3 (“Homer Young, formerly of this city, will
also attend Andover this year.”).
[xiii]
Oakland Tribune, January 24, 1887,
page 3.
[xiv] Los Angeles Express, August 22, 1890,
page 4.
[xv] The Oakland Tribune, March 19, 1888,
page 6.
[xvi]
Night sports were not unheard of at the time, although rare. Early experiments with night baseball were
tried as early as 1880, and even in Los Angeles as early as 1892. See my earlier post, George
Van Derbeck and the Early History of Night Baseball. https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2020/01/george-van-derbeck-and-early-history-of.html
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