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The Historic Rose Bowl of 1943: A Game Amidst War · Sports History Network

• 0:47
  In the early 1940s, the world was at war, World War II going on, and everything in life was being affected, including here in the United States.
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  The Rose bowl game was on January 1, 1942, was not in California.
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  It was moved to Durham, North Carolina, due to the west coast military restrictions following that attack on Pearl harbor just a year earlier.
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  Now, this 1942 game was a tremendous game, and we're really not going to talk too much about that because we're going to be more focused on the year of 1943.
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  This week here on Pigskin Dispatch and our Gridiron timeline.
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  We are celebrating the year 1943, but we got to give you a little bit of contextual background of the 1942 season and how we got to the Rose Bowl.
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  Now, the legendary game was returning to Pasadena for New Year's Day 1943.
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  The Rose bowl parade remained canceled, though, and the collective focus of the nation was entirely locked on the war and the gridiron.
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  This game was something that Americans had something to look forward to for a little bit of normalcy while most of the young men across the world were fighting over in Europe and in Northern Africa.
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  Now, the 1942 regular season, the Georgia Bulldogs were just a juggernaut of a team.
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  Head coach Wally Butts had a highly explosive roster.
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  Georgia entered the season hungry and statistically posted the nation's number one offense, averaging 429 and a half yards per game.
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  Think about that for a second now.
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  Now they demolished rivals Florida 75 to nothing and shut out number two Georgia Tech, 34 to nothing.
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  And they were trailing number three Alabama, 10.
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  Nothing at halftime or I'm sorry, in the fourth quarter on Halloween.
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  But they rolled back to bring it all the way back, a 21 to 10 victory over the Crimson Tide.
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  Now, their lone blemish was a 27 to 13 upset loss to rival Auburn, costing them the absolute number one spot.
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  And.
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  And they finished the regular season ranked number two in the AP poll.
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  They had stars galore.
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  Frank Sinkwich, the tough, legendary halfback slash quarterback ended up winning the 1942 Heisman Trophy.
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  He dominated the year with 1392 yards passing and almost 800 yards rushing in the backfield.
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  Along with him, Charlie Trippy, the sophomore sensation who split time in the backfield with Sinkwich.
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  He racked up another 787 yards rushing.
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  This was a potent one two punch.
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  These guys were fast, quick and almost unstoppable.
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  Now they were going to be facing the UCLA Bruins, who sort of rose up out of that Pacific Coast League.
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  Back then head coach Babe Horrell led the Bruins through an unpredictable but deeply historic year.
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  To illustrate how World War II was on the home front.
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  The regular season game against USC was turned into a massive million dollar war bond drive.
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  So that rivalry helped put some equipment into the hands of the allies for, you know, for football proceeds.
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  UCLA went 7 and 4 overall but finished 61 in the Pac 10 or the Pacific coast conferences it was called then.
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  And they ended up earning their first bowl game appearance in school history in night at the end of 1942 season.
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  And they entered a postseason ranked number 13 in the nation.
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  Now the star power of the UCLA Bruins was quarterback Bob Waterfield who was on offensive threat all his own because of his precision kicking and clever playmaking.
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  Very wise.
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  We learned a lot about Bob Waterfield, what he did with the Cleveland and LA Rams when he once he got to the NFL.
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  Now the Rose bowl game was, you know, really electric.
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  93,000 fans came to this game.
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  We're in the middle of a war.
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  But 93,000 fans packed the Rose bowl stadium.
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  And Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren served as the grand marshal of of the game.
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  Remember, there's no parade that year.
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  Now this team's teams on both sides.
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  This game was advertised as being an explosion.
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  Waterfield against Sinquich and Trippy.
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  These offenses could put up points.
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  You know, we told you.
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  429 yards a game average for the Georgia Bulldogs.
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  But UCLA had a tough defense as well.
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  Now this game ended up being dominated by Georgia.
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  They were running the ball up and down the field, throwing some passes here and there.
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  But the Bruins defense fought valiantly.
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  But their offense was totally suffocated by Georgia as they only registered five first downs all game and only 157 total yards.
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  Waterfield's offense was held to the score of this game was scoreless.00 tie entering into the fourth quarter even though Georgia had been moving the ball up and down the field.
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  But the big break came when Georgia's Willard Red Boyd blocked a Bob Waterfield punt.
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  The ball rolled out of the end zone for a safety and the Bulldogs led.
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  Two nothing.
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  Two points in a postseason game is not a very big lead at all.
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  And a little bit of nervousness in the air for that 93,000 fans.
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  But the dagger came a capitalizing on the moment.
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  Georgia drove down the field after they got the ball back on that punt.
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  Frank Sinquich was injured, but he powered over the goal line from one yard line out for the game's only touchdown to score that game.
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  I'm sorry it wasn't Sink, which it was Red Boyd who ended up powering that, but Sinquich helped lead that charge.
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  So the final score that game was Georgia 9, UCLA.
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  Nothing in the game.
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  Charlie Trippy rushed for 130 yards and was retroactively named the game's most valuable player and Georgia finished 111 on the season, was crowned the 1942 national champion by the vast majority of the mathematical data selectors.
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  There's a few that did not pick them, but the war took over, you know, as soon as the game was over and the final whistle instantly after game, the majority of players from both teams traded their football uniforms
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  for military fatigues and went off to fight into World War II.
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  And that is how we sort of start the 1943 football year is with that Rose bowl game played January 1, 1943.
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  We are going to be covering different aspects of 1943's season because it is really a turning point for football, as we will find out.
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  We're not going to throw any spoilers at you yet.
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  You see, the last couple days we have put out some YouTube shorts on the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel about 1943.
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  We had one about the Steagalls come out yesterday.
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  Have another one coming out this afternoon.
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  If you haven't got a chance to check those out, please do.
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  It's going to lead into a great conversation we're going to have about that next 1943 season with Timothy Brown on Tuesday, as we always do, and we have lots of surprises and stories to tell of 1943 throughout the
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  year.
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  It is part of our gridiron timeline, pigskindispatch.com make sure you check that out.
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  Click the timeline icons or letters up near the top of that and you'll go through and you'll see every football year from 1869 up through the present will be up posted this week.
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  And you can check those out or you can check out the daily football history as we've always had here in pigskindispatch.com because we are your portal to football history and we are certainly taking you into those portals.
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  This week it was 1943 on our minds and some great gridiron history.
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  So till next time, everybody have a great gridiron day.