By Darin The Great Rose Bowl Hoax: When a 3-6 Harvard Team Was "Invited" to Pasadena
While the modern era is seeing a slow return of Ivy League teams considering postseason play—a novelty perhaps best illustrated by the news that some Ivy teams might secure bowl slots in 2025—it’s easy to forget that nearly a century ago, one of the ancient institutions received perhaps the most absurd bowl invitation in history. The subject? The 1936 Rose Bowl, and the unsuspecting victim was none other than the Harvard Crimson.
Thanks to the work of historians like Timothy P. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com, we can pull back the curtain on this classic college football prank, a story that perfectly captures the spirit of football antiquity. Tim wrote about this instance in a recent Tidbit post titled: Harvard's 1936 Rose Bowl Invitation
The Strange Rules of Bowl Season Past
To understand the prank, you must first understand the bowl landscape of 1936.
The Rose Bowl, then as now, was king, but the selection process was dramatically different. The Rose Bowl Committee had a standing arrangement to host the champion of the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC), which that year was Stanford. The PCC champion’s athletic director was then given the responsibility to select their opponent, typically an elite team from the East or Midwest.
In 1936, the field of eligible opponents was surprisingly thin. The top teams were LSU, SMU, and TCU, but two of the era's traditional powers, Minnesota and Princeton, were barred from postseason play by their conference and league agreements, respectively. This unusual vacuum might have made an invitation seem slightly less ludicrous to some, but not by much.
A 3-6 Harvard Gets a Telegram
The Harvard Crimson finished the 1935 season (the team that would play in the 1936 Rose Bowl) with a middling 3-6 record—hardly the résumé of a national contender.
Despite this abysmal tally, Harvard’s Athletic Director, William Bingham, received a telegram from Alfred Masters, the athletic director at Stanford. The message was unmistakable: Harvard was invited to play in the Rose Bowl.
Bingham, likely stunned, didn't panic. He understood the traditions of the era. He promptly telegraphed his response back to Stanford, a model of polite, New England refusal that reads like a masterpiece of bureaucratic formality:
"Harvard regrets it cannot accept your bowl invitation this year. Due to the Harvard, Yale, Princeton agreement, we are unable to engage in any postseason games. It will be impossible next year because our present policy extends until 1938. Good luck on New Year's Day."
The Rose Bowl Hoax Is Revealed
The twist in this tale of antiquity arrived moments later when the real Alfred Masters received Bingham’s formal rejection. Masters was completely bewildered, as he had never sent an invitation to the 3-6 Crimson. The entire sequence of events was a meticulously planned, anonymous hoax.
The prankster, whose identity remains unknown to this day, had done more than just fool Harvard. The individual had also sent a similar telegraph to the Stanford student newspaper, falsely signing it as the editor of Harvard's newspaper, presumably to lend credence and ensure the story (and the embarrassment) spread.
While the Crimson escaped any further embarrassment—Masters ultimately extended the official invitation to SMU—the incident serves as a hilarious, forgotten chapter in college football lore.
The prank, however, was not unique. Similar bowl season shenanigans plagued college athletics for decades. As late as the 1950s, a high school band in Casopolis, Michigan, received a fake invitation to march in the Rose Bowl Parade, leading the entire community to hold frantic fundraisers before the principal discovered the cruel joke.
The 1936 Harvard Rose Bowl Hoax stands as a reminder that football history isn't just about Heisman winners and championships; sometimes, it’s about a good, old-fashioned, anonymous bowl season prank.
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Transcript
Tim's up in just a moment to.
Darin Hayes:Tell us all about it.
Timothy Brown:This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football event throughout history. Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.
Darin Hayes:Before we get into our episode today, let's take the time to drill that football right into the like and subscribe button on your console so you know exactly when the notifications come up of the latest releases of Pixie and Dispatch podcast for some more great football history. Now onto our episode.
Darin Hayes:Hello, my football friends.
Darin Hayes:This is Darren Hayes of Pigskind dispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history. And welcome to another edition where we talk with Timothy p. Brown of footballarchaeology.com about some football from antiquity.
Darin Hayes:Tim, what do you have for us tonight?
Timothy Brown:Well, I have a story which I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Darin Hayes:All right. So help you God.
le while ago called Harvard's:Timothy Brown:Yeah, so this we've been doing, you know, because it's bowl season, we've been doing a couple different stories on, on bowls of late, but just as a reminder if anybody missed earlier episodes. So when the Bulls first got started, well, when the Rose bowl got started, the Rose bowl committee selected the teams to participate.
And then once they, you know, they basically reached an agreement that they would always invite the champion of the Pacific Coast Conference. And then basically the responsibility for the invitation transferred to them.
ow, that was the case back in:And so during the 36 or it would have been the 35 season, Cal, Stanford and UCLA tied for the Pacific Coast Championship. But then they, for one, one way or another, Stanford got the invitation.
So then it became Stanford's decision in terms of who they were going to invite. And during that season, the top teams were Minnesota, smu, Princeton, TCU, and lsu. The Big Ten barred post season play, and so Minnesota was out.
And Princeton was part of an agreement that said they can't do Prince or postseason play either. So they were out. So. And as it turned out, several of the contending teams had Thanksgiving Day games.
You know, back then, Thanksgiving Day games were a bigger deal than they are now. But. And so Harvard lost to Yale in their last game of the season, the weekend before Thanksgiving, leaving them at a 3 and 6 record.
So kind of it was a little bit strange, but William Bingham, who was Harvard's athletic director at the time, he received a telegraph from Stanford's athletic director, guy named Alfred Masters. He gets a telegraph from this guy inviting Harvard to participate in the Rose bowl. And they're like, what, what the heck?
I mean, it, you know, the, the Rose, the, the invitation wasn't always to the best team.
You know, typically, you know, certainly one of the better teams, but there might have been one reason or another why you'd want to invite somebody else. And so, you know, Harvard was like, what? The. This makes no sense. But anyways, they. This.
The Harvard athletic director writes back and he says, I'm going to read this verbatim. Harvard regrets it cannot accept your bowl invitation this year.
present policy extends until:Okay, so he telegraphs this response to Stanford and the Stanford athletic director gets this thing and he's surprised that Harvard turned him down because he never invited Harvard. So, you know, yeah, all of a sudden he's getting this response from Harvard. You know, he's like, why are they sending me a response?
So, you know, the, the Stanford athletic director probably would have like been quiet about it and you know, kind of kept it under wraps and somehow reached out to, to Harvard.
But someone, whoever was kind of behind this whole thing had also sent a tele, basically a similar telegraph to the Stanford student newspaper and signed it under a fake name as the editor of Harvard's newspaper. So. So no one's ever really figured out who was behind all this stuff.
But you know, it's this whole thing where somebody pulls off this prank or hoax of, you know, basically tricking Harvard's athletic director into thinking that they got invited to the Rose Bowl. And Stanford's like, what the heck? We didn't invite you guys. You know, you're three and six.
Darin Hayes:It could have been worse if he accepted the offer.
Timothy Brown:Yeah.
Darin Hayes:Made plans in Harvard, showing up out there, and now you have three teams to play one game.
Timothy Brown:Yeah. So anyways, you know, Stanford then, you know, ends up inviting smu. But it's funny that you say, well, it's. What if they accepted?
in the some. Sometime in the:So these kids are just ecstatic, all excited, and they start, you know, holding fundraisers to raise the money to, you know, ship all these kids out there to. To Pasadena. And at one point, the. The principal is like, you know, we haven't heard from these guys. Maybe we ought to check this out. And so he.
He contacts the Rose bowl people and says, hey, you know, we've got the invitation. Can you give us specifics on the arrangements, hotels, that kind of thing? And Rose Paul's like, we didn't invite you. So.
So here's this, you know, this high school goes through all this stuff, you know, basically the same kind of scenario, but so who, you know, might have been a rival band at rival high school or something that sent them the invitation, but, you know, that one was fake too. So I just think, you know, I'm sure somebody's feelings were hurt, but I still think it's pretty funny.
Darin Hayes:Yeah, there's a lot of pranking going on in football back. Well, for decades, you know, all the way in the 60s, we had some good pranks going during bowl season. So it's not just for April Fool's Day.
Pranks will come out in bowl season, too. So that makes some interesting stories, you know, 70, 80, 100 years later to talk about.
Timothy Brown:Here we are having a.
Darin Hayes:Having a lot of football history podcast.
Darin Hayes:You know, getting pranked. Yeah, absolutely. So this is, you know, just one of those unique stories that you don't hear anywhere else except for in football Archaeology Realm.
And we appreciate you sharing it with us, but you have other items and little tidbits that you call them that you write about. And what can you tell people where they can take in some of these?
Timothy Brown:Yeah, just go to footballarchaeology.com. it's a substack site.
You can subscribe, in which case you'll get an email every time that I publish a new story and the email contains the story itself.
If you don't want the emails, just follow me on Substack, follow me on Blue sky because I post there every time or just bookmark it and you know, show up kind of whenever you want to. But you know, if you want to, make sure you at least have a chance to see it. Best thing is to subscribe.
Darin Hayes:All right, Tim, well, we really appreciate you taking some time out during this busy season of football to take time to tell us about some football of the past and we'd love to talk to you again next week.
Timothy Brown:Very good. Look forward to it.
