The 4th Rose Bowl Game

One of the top experts in early football rules history Timothy P Brown joins us on the discussion to chat about the 1918 Rose Bowl Game between military bases Mare Island and Camp Lewis. Timothy Brown's FootballArchaeology.com has a daily football factoid that he shares that are really quite interesting in a short read. They preserve football history in a very unique way and we are quite happy that Tim has agreed to join us each week to go over some of his Today's Tidbits. Click that link and you can subscribe for free to receive them yourself each evening.

The 1918 Rose Bowl, known as the Tournament East-West Football Game, was played on January 1, 1918, at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California. The Pasadena New Year's Day game quickly became a popular annual event in just a couple of years. Since most of the college football players were fighting overseas during World War I, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses decided to stage the game with military units, with the approval of President Woodrow Wilson. With players, travel, and large gatherings restricted, the game was played with players from the Mare Island Marines of California and the Camp Lewis Army from American Lake, Washington. Author Timothy P Brown has an excellent post on the Mare Island 1917 team on FootballArchaeoloogy.com.

Fox Stanton coached Camp Lewis while on the opposite sideline for Mare Island was the legendary Hugo Bezdek. Coach Bezdek led multiple teams to the Rose Bowl as Oregon in 1917, Mare Island in 1918 had victories, and Penn State appeared in the 1923 Rose Bowl.

Within weeks of the 1918 Rose Bowl Game, most players from both teams were scheduled to go overseas. John Beckett left tackle for Mare Island, acknowledged this fact and said, "this would be the last battle that we would fight in the name of sports."

Mare Island struck the scoreboard first in the game with an Ambrose 31-yard field goal in the second quarter. Camp Lewis responded in turn as Dick Romney, formerly a football star at Utah, played halfback for the Camp Lewis team, and scored the team's only touchdown on the next series. The Marines promptly answered with a Jap Brown 5-yard rushing score, but the kick failed for a 9-7 halftime lead.

In the locker room, Bezdek went to work with his adjustments. The Marines came out in the second half and scored on a fourth-quarter Hollis Huntington 1-yard TD plunge, and this time a successful Keith Kapp Ambrose kick, followed a bit later by Ambrose's 33-yard field goal. The Mare Island Marines triumphed 19-7.

The banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Football team sitting on bleachers, US Naval Training Station at University of Washington, 1917:

During World War I a temporary Naval Training Station was set up on the University of Washington campus, near where the university's health sciences center is now located. The training camp was active from 1917-1919, during which time over 5,000 mostly college students were trained for both naval and naval aviation units.

This image shows the Naval Training Station football team sitting on bleachers. Military leaders particularly emphasized football, considering it excellent combat training and arguing that it teaches discipline, teamwork, and following orders.

This photo is part of an album belonging to Anne Augusta Bathurst (1894-1984) who was a UW student and served as Chief Yeomen (F) (popularly known as "Yeomanettes"" at the Naval Training Station during the period in which the photo was taken. Women were recruited into the Naval Reserve Force in the WW I era to meet severe clerical shortages at shore stations. In 1922 Anne married Henry H. "Harry" Hoefs (1893-1979), a Lieutenant commander in the U. S. Navy during both WWI and WWII; they were stationed all over the world and retired to Bellevue.
Identifications from Herman Anderson photograph collection, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, PH Coll 1242.4: Top row: left to right: Bartlett, McDonald, Crowley, Saunders, Williams, Maris, Chaplain James. Third row: Neal, Crawford, Willard, Sharpe, Routley, Stewart, Tegart, Coach Anderson. Second row: Green, Smith, Anstett, Norris, Potter, McCullom, Moriarty, Fish. Bottom row: Oliver, Gilmur, Donnelly, Wrucke, Rubottom, Hunt, Captain Simmons, Lowry. Caption information source: "Camp Lewis 91st Division football team plays the Mare Island Marines in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1918," by Duane Colt Denfeld, HistoryLink.org Essay 10686 Caption information source: The Seattle Daily Times, July 18, 1918, page 17 Caption information source: U.S. Navy Naval Historical Center website at http://www.history.navy.mil. Courtesy of Webster & Stevens.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites mentioned above includingTim's Football Archaeology and Wikipedia.