Holiday Road Trip Rose Bowl

By Paul M. Banks

In my application essay for the Poynter Institute’s Sport Journalism Summit II in 2007, I wrote about the first game I can recall watching in my life. I was a five year old when the January 1, 1984 Rose Bowl took place. That day I became hooked on sports even though my parents are anything but sports fans. My sister was a freshman at the University of Illinois at the time, and she attended their 45-9 trouncing at the hands of Rick Neuheisel’s UCLA team. Like reading Orwell’s novel, recalling ’1984′ is a haunting, disturbing experience. As a child, I remember being confused about how one team invited to this special game meant to be played on a neutral site was actually playing at their home stadium. I was also confused as to why one team, UCLA gets to play all their home games in this special historic stadium; that doesn’t seem right! 25 years later, I still find many things wrong with the bowl game system.

Rose Colored Glasses

The Rose Bowl is “the Grand Daddy of them All,” the first bowl game, the first national televised sporting event, the last bowl game to sell out its name, in short it’s the best and most important bowl game around – every year. Tradition is one of college football’s strongest suits, and you’ll find it in Pasadena, where the venue and the stadium have the same name. But the only thing truly impressive about the stadium itself is the view. The vistas of the San Gabriel Mountains behind the west side of the venue are breathtaking. Watching the sunset here can be a truly transcendent experience. So it’s easy to understand why 5 Super Bowls. It can host 92,000 people but the Rose Bowl is really, from a structural standpoint, just a big huge oval shaped bowl. The architecture is nothing special, unless you’re very impressed by Southwestern style concession stands.

Van Guard

Growing up in Long Beach, California, former UCLA starting corner Rodney Van cheered for the just-up-the-coast Bruins. The Westwood CA University has such a successful athletic tradition that Sports Illustrated once rated it the #1 school for sports. In the Bruin’s 13-9 upset over #2 USC in ‘06, Van led his team in tackles that Saturday and was instrumental to containing the high powered Trojan offense. I spoke with Van about his school and home stadium.

Tell me about the UCLA tradition and becoming the first university to have 100 NCAA championships…

“We’re one championship away; we need just one more to become the first school with 100. It shows that my decision was justified; that I made the right choice for this reason and many others. John Wooden, the women’s softball team, Jackie Robinson and all the others helped establish UCLA for great sports and great academics.  And I strive to do my part contributing because every sport has made a contribution to the tradition.”

How does it feel to play all of your home games in the Rose Bowl, one of football’s most prestigious and historical stadiums?

“What can I say? People love roses. It’s not the most elegant stadium from the outside; but once you get inside it’s nice, the best stadium for playing college football. Once you get inside, everything is set up for the viewer. Not a bad seat anywhere. There’s no way- up-there-triple-deck where people would look like ants and stuff.”

I took in the UCLA win over Oregon St. and I had a seat near the very top, but I found it to be a very good seat, every view was fine…

“Even way up there, it is not truly a bad seat; that sets up a warm feeling knowing that all those people up there and everywhere else in the packed stadium are watching you,” he responded.

Where Life is a Rose Garden

That game I referred to was a 2006 late season meeting where the unranked Bruins upset the #22 Beavers that day and one of the most memorable features of this game was the University’s insane rabble-rouser: this guy who preached like Joel Osteen or Elmer Gantry spoke with the voice of Henry Rollins. “WE GET NO RESPECT FROM THE POLLS!!!” he preached. He did a good job convincing me that this was the War on Terror or the Clash of Civilizations, not a battle for fourth place in the Pac 10. He made believe that the Oregon State Beavers were a team composed of Sunni Militia, Shia extremist suicide bombers, Al Qaeda and other enemy combatants.

I also met a couple other characters while I visited this 92,000 seat capacity stadium that was completed in 1922, including my first Scientologist. She sat next to me at the game, a kind of hot grandmother who openly discussed her drug dealing days at Cal-Berkley in front of her grandkids there and seemed a little too crazy even for the Scientologists. The funniest moment was when she told her children, in all seriousness, that they were artificially created in a Petri dish. My buddy Joey Krembusewzski, a SICA native who moved to L.A. to work in the industry, gave me a look indicating that he shared my feelings of horrified amusement. (Seriously everyone “works in the biz” out there, that Hollywood cliché is very true to life as he could tell you)

On the Scientology cliché is hilariously accurate too. I’ve seen the handouts they give out in the temple on L. Ron Hubbard Drive which included an “ethical cleansing room,” so maybe they’re even crazier than my hot grandma single-serving friend. I also met a paralegal who had all orange & black clothes (OSU’s colors) with matching painted nails, handbags and even orange and black flip-flops. And finally the idiot who annoyingly kept playing the UCLA fight song on his kazoo.
So the people I met at the Rose Bowl had personalities almost as colorful as the pageantry of the Tournament of Roses Parade.

Paul M. Banks is a contributor for NBCChicago.com, The Washington Times and the Chicago 2016 Channel

You may also like -

Illini Escape Western Michigan; Illinois 4-0 First Time since 1951!Penn State is "Radioactive" to Bowl Selection Committees; Big 10 Bowl Pr ...Michigan Wolverines Stay Undefeated, Conquer Northwestern 42-24