The 22nd through the 27th Rose Bowl Game

We cover a span of six consecutive Rose Bowl games in this episode that had some very memrable people and events. The New Years' Games from 1936 through 1941 are covered here!

1936 Rose Bowl

After dismal weather in deplorable economic conditions, had an abysmal turnout for the 1934 Rose Bowl, the 1936 version. Well, it had quite a great crowd of 85 thousand estimated to watch Stanford play SMU. The Reno Gazette-Journal tells us that the Rose Bowl Game was won
by Stanford, seven to nothing over Southern Methodist.
Bill Paul, the Stanford quarterback, was at the bottom of the pile after he smashed over the goal line on a short little buck play. That score was the winning touchdown and was all Stanford needed to win, seven to nothing.
One of the bright spots for the mustangs in the game was 147-pound Bobby Wilson, the All-American halfback, who smashed the line on one play and stiff-armed Big Bob Reynolds, a 226-pound Stanford tackle knocking the big man to the ground. There were two Stanford Ends chosen retroactively as the MVPs of the game; James Moscrip and Keith Topping.

1937 Rose Bowl

Jock Sutherland took his Pitt Panthers to the Rose Bowl game for the fourth time in nine seasons on January 1, 1937. The 7-1-1 Panthers would face the 7-1-1 Washington Huskies of Coach James Phelan. The recently expanded Rose Bowl would allow over 87,000 spectators into the venue. The horseshoe was finally completed to make it an actual Bowl stadium. The game started well for Pitt as running back Bobby La Rue, flashed through the Washington defense for most of the drive deep into the Huskies' territory. Frank Patrick plunged into the endzone from 1-yard out, and Bill Daddio tacked on the extra point to give Pittsburgh an early 7-0 lead. The score remained just that at intermission until, in the third, Patrick again found paydirt, and with the aid of Daddio, the Panthers went up 14-0. In the fourth quarter, the later-named MVP, Daddio, added a 70-yard TD run of his own to provide Pitt's final score of 21-0. 

Daddio and La Rue 02 Jan 1937, Sat Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com

1938 Rose Bowl

The 24th edition of the Rose Bowl was played on Saturday, January 1, 1938 and featured a couple of past participants in the grand New Years' Game. Alabama returned after winning the Southeastern Conference with a 9-0 record under the guidance of Coach Frank Thomas. Their invited opponent was the 9-0-1 Cal Golden Bears of Coach Stub Allison. Alabama would be making their fifth trip to California to play in the Rose Bowl and had won the previous four. It was not in the card for a fifth on this travel, though, as Cal scored on a pair of Vic Bottari, short runs (4 and 5 -yards, respectively) along with one good Sam Chapman kick, to win 13-0. Bottari was honored with the retroactive MVP crowning in 1953 for his feats.

Cal Wins 13-0 02 Jan 1938, Sun The Austin American (Austin, Texas) Newspapers.com

1939 Rose Bowl

The 25th annual Rose Bowl game was played on January 2, 1939. The committee invited teams from the University of Southern California and Duke University. Under Coach Howard Jones, the Trojans came out of the Pacific Coast Conference with an 8-2 record, while the Blue Devils, guided by the wisdom of Head Coach Wade Wallace, were riding high on a 9-0 ledger. Not one point had been allowed by this vaunted Duke defense known as the "Iron Dukes", led by co-captains Dan Hill and Eric Tipton during the scheduled season.
The card was a much-awaited pairing, and the contest lived up to the hype. The game was scoreless after three quarters. The Blue Devils took the lead with a 23-yard field goal by Tony Ruffa early in the fourth quarter. USC responded a bit later when quarterback Doyle Nave came off the bench and completed four straight passes to sophomore end "Antelope" Al Krueger. On one of these, Krueger did run like an antelope as he put a move on Blue Devil  Eric Tipton and scored the winning touchdown with one minute remaining. Krueger's touchdown marked the first points scored against Duke during the season. That was all she wrote as the final score of 7-3 USC. It was a heartbreaking loss for the Blue Devils, who played a fantastic game save that one play. The retroactive co-MVPs  were Southern California QB Doyle Nave, and his end Southern Al Krueger. 

USC last minute pass 03 Jan 1939, Tue The Morning Call (Paterson, New Jersey) Newspapers.com

1940 Rose Bowl

Howard Jones and his Trojans earned an invite to Pasadena after the following season and were ranked third in the Nation at the end of the regular season by the AP poll. Their opponent was the second-ranked Tennesse Volunteers of Coach Robert Neyland. The Vols at 10-0 were a hot commodity for the post season bowls. Tennessee was offered  a berth in both the Sugar Bowl and wer also in the discussion for the Cotton Bowl. The Cotton Bowl would have had them facing the #1 team in the land, the Texas A&M Aggies. These invites were in November, but the Vols decided to wait until December 10 request of the Rose Bowl for them to commit to a bowl game. The game flow had no scoring in the first period but that changed in the second quarter when Ambrose Schindler dove in for a 1-yard TD run for USC, followed by a Jones kick to make the score 7-0. There were no further points in the game until the Trojans made it a two-score game when the hero from the last Rose Bowl, Al Krueger, caught a 2-yard pass from QB Ambrose Schindler and USC won 14-0. Schindler was honored years later, being named as the game's MVP.

1941 Rose Bowl

The picture in the banner above is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1937 Rose Bowl football program for game between the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Washington

Published by the athletic departments of the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Washington. The cover was illustrated by Annette Honeywell.

Information was gathered from Newspapers.com, the Sports-Reference.com sites, and Wikipedia.com