SPORTS SHOWCASE: The Year They Moved The Rose Bowl
Jan. 2, 2002
By HAL BOCK
AP Sports Writer
The year was 1942, and the nation was recovering from a surprise attack thatleft thousands dead.
Amid uncertainty and fears about security, they played the Rose Bowl 60years ago – not in Pasadena, Calif., but in Durham, N.C., the only timefootball’s oldest bowl game was moved out of town.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 mean security will be tight Thursday nightwhen Miami and Nebraska meet for the Bowl Championship Series’ nationaltitle at the Rose Bowl. It will mark a rare time when the game is not playedon New Year’s Day and doesn’t involve the champions from the Big Ten andPac-10 conferences.
When it comes to Rose Bowl rarities, however, the game played three weeksafter Pearl Harbor is in a class of its own.
Longshot Oregon State, 7-2 and surprise winners of the Pacific CoastConference, had earned the host role and the right to invite an opponent. Itchose one of the country’s best teams in Duke, undefeated at 9-0 andequipped with the second-highest scoring offense in the country.
It seemed like an intriguing, appealing matchup – East Coast vs. West Coast.
Then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and the governmentordered Earl Warren, then governor of California, to cancel the event out offears that a large crowd on the West Coast might be too tempting a target.
Two alternate sites were proposed to the Tournament of Roses Association,which conducts the game.
Arch Ward, sports editor of the Chicago Tribune and the man who eight yearsearlier invented baseball’s All-Star game, offered Soldier Field, a sort ofneutral site in the middle of the country that would seat 120,000.
Duke coach Wallace Wade suggested Durham, promising to increase stadiumcapacity from 35,000 to 55,000 with temporary stands.
Wade prevailed.
It was one last college game for many of the players, who faced an uncertainfuture with the arrival of war.
There was a scramble to assemble the teams. Many of the players hadscattered after the game originally was canceled, some to enlist, others tospend the holidays at home.
Game day came up rainy in Durham, slowing Duke’s single-wing attack operatedby quarterback Tommy Prothro, later an NFL coach. The visitors never noticedthe weather.
“It was a misty day,” Gene Gray said. “I don’t think they were used toplaying in mist. Being from Oregon, a kind of wet area, it kind of evenedthings out.
“It was a good, hard-fought game. The punters must have averaged 50 yardseach.”
With the score tied at 7-7 in the third quarter, the game turned on threetouchdowns scored in just over two minutes, two of them by Oregon State.Gray was an integral figure in both of his team’s scores.
First, he raced 24 yards from his own 45 to Duke’s 31, putting Oregon Statein position for the go-ahead score. After Duke came right back to tie thegame, Gray struck again, this time hooking up with Bob Dethman on a 68-yardTD.
“It was one of our regular pass plays,” Gray said. “The halfback goes out inthe flat. If the defensive back comes up, you turn downfield. He came up. Iturned and stopped. He went right by.
“The pass was 30 yards. I ran the rest of the way. At the time, it broke therecord for the longest pass in the Rose Bowl.”
It was the winning score in Oregon State’s 20-16 victory that spoiled Duke’sundefeated season. Soon, many of the players were off to war, often reunitedin far-flung theaters of battle.
Gray had signed on with the Naval Air Corps. Originally deferred and told hedidn’t have enough teeth, he cracked, “I wasn’t figuring on biting anybody.”
“They called me a smart aleck,” he said. “Because of that, I enlisted in theAir Force.”
He flew more than 30 bombing missions over Germany and remained in theservice after the war. In May 1948, Gray was flying jet fighters in Panama.There was a flameout on takeoff and a horrific crash in the jungle. He wasburned over 50 percent of his body and had both arms amputated.
Gray tells his story on ESPN Classic’s two-hour “Rose Bowl Road Show,” to beshown Thursday from 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. EST. The show includes newsreelclips of the catch that won the only Rose Bowl not played in Pasadena.
