The 6th Rose Bowl Game

Getting coverage of the historic 1920 Rose Bowl Game between Harvard and Oregon is a multi day look. First up with an angle on the Harvard side of things from the 1919 season is Author Dick Friedman who is also a Harvard football correspondent and alumnus wrote a biography on Coach Haughton to preserve their history on his coaching career and contributions to the game. The Coach Who Strangled the Bulldog: How Harvard's Percy Haughton Beat Yale and Reinvented Football 

The Tournament East-West Football Game, played on January 1, 1920, is considered the sixth Rose Bowl game. The 8-0-1 Harvard Crimson met the 5-1 Oregon Webfoots at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California. In 1953 Harvard halfback Edward Casey was named the Rose Bowl Player of the Game retroactively. This very game, after two years of military teams playing in WWI, affected seasons and established a pattern of inviting a team from the Eastern half of the United States to face one from the West Coast. That East versus West pattern continued on, except during WWII, basically right on through modern times. The Harvard eleven were coached by Bob Fisher, and the Oregon squad was led by Head Coach Charles A. Huntington. Oregon scored on two Bill Steers field goals while Harvard scored on a 13-yard run by Fred Church on a drive that was keyed by two catches by future College Football Hall of Famer Eddie Casey. Arnold Horween added the all-important extra point that ended up being the game-winner! There was an estimated 33,500 fans in attendance to witness Harvard registering a narrow 7-6 victory.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: On This Day Sports, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com.

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1903 Stands along the third base line, Huntington Avenue Grounds, taken by an unknown.