How could I let the memory pass without writing about it?
On Sunday it will be 50 years since the Golden Gophers last played in the Rose Bowl. Back then I was a sophomore at Washburn High in Minneapolis. But on January 1, 1962 I was one of 98,214 fans who watched the Gophers kick butt in a 21-3 win over UCLA.
My family followed the Gophers with passion and arguments often were part of the dinner time conversation at our house. Family opinions differed about head coach Murray Warmath and the personnel on his roster. But we all shared one expectation: the U football program should be among the best in the country.
My dad was a young man when Bronko Nagurski became a national football legend playing for the Gophers. Soon after Nagurski’s playing days ended, coach Bernie Bierman arrived on campus and began reeling off national titles. Before he was through coaching in 1950, Bierman’s teams were credited with five national championships.
At Minnesota you expected to chase Big Ten and national titles. By 1960 the Gophers produced another national championship and a first ever trip to the Rose Bowl. Back then the national champion was named before the bowl games, and a good thing it was for the Gophers. We sat at home and watched in disbelief as Washington upset Minnesota 17-7 in the 1961 Rose Bowl.
I was furious and so was Warmath and the returning players. The Gophers, if the opportunity was there, wanted redemption in another Rose Bowl. The path to Pasadena opened in the fall of 1961 when Big Ten champion Ohio State saw its academic administration (I am not making this up) turn down the Rose Bowl invitation.
The Gophers had finished second in the Big Ten race in 1961 and were happy to head west with probably Warmath’s best team ever. The coach’s teams from 1960-1962 were all national powers and compiled a 22-6-1 record, but the 1961 team was the best balanced offensively and defensively.
Sandy Stephens was a senior All-American quarterback and Bobby Bell was a junior All-American tackle who the following season would win the Outland Trophy. The Gophers had a second tackle, similar to Bell, who was capable of stopping a defense almost by himself, sophomore Carl Eller who would be an All-American in 1963.