From Wikipedia - "The Bears (by student vote?) turned down invitations from the Tournament of Roses in 1922 and 1923, unhappy that their 1921 opponents, the Washington and Jefferson Presidents, were much older than most college players and not subject to the same eligibility requirements."

Cal turned down the chance to play in the first Rose Bowl in the current stadium (USC beat Penn State as Cal's replacement), although Cal did beat USC in the first game played in the stadium (before it was dedicated).
Note: The Trojans actually finished fourth in the PCC behind Cal, Oregon, and Washington. UW took Cal's place in the 1924 Rose Bowl. For the 1925 game Cal wasn't invited, although undefeated; Stanford was also undefeated and had more conference wins.

What would the alumni do if the students turned down a Rose Bowl invite this year???

I don't think the invitation to the 1922 and 1923 Rose Bowls were turned down by student body votes. I think Andy Smith turned them down because of the W&J fiasco.

Smith felt that W&J was using players who weren't, in fact, enrolled for any other purpose than to play football. In short, ringers. Since the Tournament of Roses Committee wouldn't ensure the players's eligibility, Smith declined the invitation to play the 1922 and 1923 Rose Bowls.

This is not the first time that eligibility was at issue in Cal football history. When Cal resumed playing football in 1916, the series with Stanford was not resumed because Stanford insisted on playing freshman, whereas Cal insisted that freshman not play varsity football. The 1916 season was Andy Smith's first season as coach at Cal.

The Big Game was not played in 1916, 1917, and technically not in 1918, although there was a Student Army Training Corp game between the two schools. It just so happened that most of Cal's SATC team were members of the football team, and most of Stanford's SATC team were not football players. Final score: Cal 67, Stanford 0.

The Big Game series resumed in 1919.

Quote:
Originally Posted by LafayetteBear
Who cares?! [U]I happened almost 100 years ago [/U]... Bring Andy Smith back and see if he makes the same decision again...

carebear;359845 said:

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and you said the song dated you.

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I had wondered which Cal fan had been to a football game the longest time in the past. My dad who would have been 90, attended his first game 72 years ago. I attended my first game that I remember, at 10. Sounds like LafayetteBear has everyone beat, anyone else alive remember seeing the Andy Smith teams play?

carebear;359865 said:

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they did a piece last year (or the year before) on some old guy who had been going to every game for a very long time. don't remember how long.

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When I was looking up Rose Bowl history the story mentioned a SC "super fan" who attended that first Rose Bowl in the new stadium (that Cal boycotted) and then attended every SC game, including road games, for over 70 years. That's quite a record considering travel times before the 1950's.

DavidDempster;359713 said:

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I don't think the invitation to the 1922 and 1923 Rose Bowls were turned down by student body votes. I think Andy Smith turned them down because of the W&J fiasco.

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IIRC Smith was also hoping to start his own post season Holiday game tradition @ Memorial Stadium. He invited his alma mater- Penn - to play in Berkeley one of those years, and I believe Cal and Penn played a couple of post season games after his death, too.

I've always thought of our star-crossed Rose Bowl history as going right back to Smith's feud with them. When Nibs Price took the '28 team there a couple of years after Smith's death, that was *supposed* to be the reconciliation, the fence mending, the thing that would get California back in the good graces of what was becoming a very important game. Instead we got Riegels and the Wrong Way Run......... and such has been our lot with Rose Bowls pretty much ever since. One brief positive spark under Stub Allison in the teeth of the depression..... but otherwise, nothing. Smith's decision, and his subsequent death pretty much ceded the field to Howard Jones and SC and Pop Warner and Stanford. (Might have been different, though, if we'd won that '29 game and the National Championship that would have gone with it.....)

"Hey, ain't that Blueblood already starting his crawl to Memorial Stadium. He's been doing that for at least 80-some years!..or..or...is he just crawling home form another one of his benders?"

Okay...but LafayetteBear you still seem to know more about things that happen 100 years ago than any other cyberbear fan....so hey, take it easy old timer.....

The attachment is from John Sullivan's 'The Big Game' and describes the 1921 Rose Bowl. At the end it says 'Washington and Jefferson had a good team, but when the bid came they had to telegraph players to come back to school'. Sounds like today W&J would be in trouble with the NCAA.