Big 10 Conference and Rose Bowl

Tomorrow, the Rose Bowl will be played. When I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois (1950-53), the Rose Bowl pitted the champions of the Big 10 conference and the Pacific 10 conference -- and played on January 1. In the '50s, the Big 10 conference was probably the strongest conference in USA, as evidenced by having UCLA Bruins -- a strong team in later decades -- as the season's opener in 1950. During that season, Illinois had a home game against Ohio State, which was then ranked #1 -- Illinois was ranked #8. On the way to the stadium, there were scalpers wanting to have my ticket to the game (which, as was the case at Penn the preceding year, was a season ticket good for all home games); the going price was $8 -- the entire seaon ticket cost me but $10. I was tempted (after all, for one cut off from the family in China, every cent was precious) but declined, for two reasons. One, I was unsure whether selling tickets above the face value was legal -- I did not want to take any chances. Two, I did not know how to get my season ticket back -- I probably would never see my season ticket again. So, I resolutely walked into the stadium. Illinois won that game -- it was more tense than exciting. At the season's end, Illinois was the Big 10 champion and played in the Rose Bowl, to which we were offered tickets. But, being cut off from from our families, only one Chinese student, who served as a lab assistant in his department, had enough resources to go. Upon his return, we persuaded him to give us a slide show (TV was not available then). He also took orders so that we could have duplicate slides (such as one showing the entrance to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena) for our memory. Many years later, when I was on the faculty of the University of Southern California, was I then able to attend the Rose Bowl when SC won the Pacific 10 championship.
Posted at 10:21 pm, Tuesday, January 3, 2006