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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 28, 1958)
Wrong-way runs, 12-man teams, and razzle-dazzle plays are , only part of the amazing history of these post-season classics. by Dave Warner IN the 1954 Cotton Bowl game at Dallas, Dickie Moegle, a Rice Insti tute scatback, was moving like' a frightened fawn in the direction of the Alabama goal line. He already had covered 57 yards and seemed on his way to an easy touchdown. But Moegle never reckoned with the emotional depth of the Alabama squad. As he dashed past the 'Bama bench, the sight of the lone runner became too much for Alabama's Tommy Lewis. Lewis became the best-known 12th man in football history when he leaped off the bench and brought Moegle to the ground. While the Rice halfback and the huge . crowd recovered from their surprise, referee Cliff Shaw made one of the quickest decisions in bowl game history, awarding Moegle a touchdown. Rice won 28-6. "Guess I was too full of Alabama," Lewis said after the game. "I'm just too emotional." Bowl games are well-spiced with such unusual occurrences, and this is the time of year for us to expect some more post-season football sur prises in games with such "Bowl" tags as Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange, Gator, Sun, Oil, Vulcan, Pineapple, Cigar, Flower, Tangerine, Raisin, Tobacco, Glass, and Pecan. The Big Four include the Rose, Sugar, Cotton, and Orange Bowls. Granddaddy of them all is the Rose Bowl at Pasadena, Calif., first played before a crowd of 8,000. Now crowds are sometimes in six figures, enriching the participating schools. That first Rose Bowl game in 1902 almost was the last. Fielding Yost took a great Michigan team out West to play Stanford. The Wolverines kicked up their heels for an easy 49-0 victory in a game so one-sided that it was cut short eight minutes by agreement of the rival captains. Because of the mismatch, there wasn't another Rose Bowl game for 14 years. In fact, somebody did a fine job of keeping the score out of the record book until sportswriter Grant land Rice dug up proof of the game in the Michigan campus paper. The year 1929 is famous for the stock-market crash and also for the most bizarre incident in Rose Bowl history the wrong-way run of Cali fornia center Roy Riegels. . In the second quarter Riegels grabbled a Georgia Tech fumble. Pursued by Tech players, Riegels cut across the field, reversed direction as he found himself hemmed in, and lost his bearings as he broke into the clear. The 70,000 spectators were dumbfounded as Riegels headed for his own goal some 60 yards away! Teammate Benny Lorn finally stop ed Riegels on the California one-yard line, but on the following play Tech blocked a California punt in the end zone for a safety, providing the win ning margin in an 8-7 Tech victory. But Riegels never let the goat's horns bother him. He was elected captain of the California team the following year and later became a successful high-school football coach despite the heartache of his famous wrong-way run. SOME OF THE GREATEST COacheS COUld win everywhere but in bowl games. Tennessee's former coach, Bob Ney land, appeared in every major bowl at least once but could win only two of seven. Jock Sutherland built a string of powerhouses at Pitt but lost three bowl games, two by one-sided scores, before he tasted victory. Other coaches have saved their bag of tricks to spur bowl-game victories. Oklahoma's wily Bud Wilkinson, an old hand at bringing his Sooners to bowl games, sprung his hurry-up huddle against mighty Maryland in the 1956 Orange Bowl game at Miami. . The Oklahomans ran off plays so speedily that Maryland, regarded the toughest defensive team in the nation, didn't have time to set up its barriers. Once, the referee almost got caught in the middle of the Oklahoma whirl wind attack. The Sooners won the game handily. And what loyal old Columbia University grad ever will forget good old KF-79, possibly the most famous play in the history of any bowl? Stanford's great team, which met Columbia in the 1934 Rose Bowl, was supposed to eat teams like the Lions for breakfast. But the boys from New York City's Momingside Heights caused the biggest rumble in Cali fornia since the '06 earthquake. Columbia back Al Barabas, faking beautifully on the KF-79, a single wing spinner play, sprinted around left end for a touchdown without a hand being laid on him. Stanford never scored, and Columbia won, 7-0. Bowl history is filled with stirring stories about the underdog. Alabama, down 12-0 at halftime against the University of Washington in the '26 game, scored three touch downs in six minutes of the second half for a 20-19 'Bama win. Johnny Mack Brown, star of the Alabama victory, used the performance as a springboard to a movie career. Wisecracks which boomeranged also have figured in bowl games. In the 1922 Rose Bowl game, California chose to play unpublicized Washing ton & Jefferson. Cracked one news man, "All I know about Washington & Jefferson is that both are dead." Insulted by the remark, W & J got charged up for the game and held Cal to a scoreless tie, the only one in Rose Bowl history. With "lonesome ends," jitterbug defensesand the controversial one or two-point conversion in college football, who knows what surprises this week's bowl games will hold? 14 Fnmili Weekly, December 21. J958
