Sports History
Bowled Over
By Anne Madarasz

This year, as the city commemorates its 250th birthday, this column will examine those people, moments, and trends that have contributed to the rich history of sport in the region.

As we celebrated the holidays and welcomed the New Year, we also had the opportunity to watch the best college football talent in the nation compete in a veritable shopping cart of bowl games - Sugar, Orange, Rose, Cotton and many more.

The Rose Bowl is the granddaddy of them all - played first in 1902, when Michigan steamrolled Stanford 49-0, the game became an annual event in 1916. The year 1922 marks the first time a regional team competed; that year Washington & Jefferson College played to a scoreless tie with the University of California. In an era of smaller budgets and looser regulations, small colleges were able to compete successfully against much larger programs. Penn State made the journey west the following year, but came home empty handed, losing to USC 14-0. Pitt, a powerhouse program in the 1910's and 20's, received invitations to play in the 1928, 1930 and 1933 match-ups, but lost twice to USC and once to Stanford. The Panthers won their only Rose Bowl in 1937, besting Washington 21-0.

A number of bowl games were born in the 1930s - college play had expanded to the point nationally where the competition could be supported and teams also had the means and the will to travel long distances to compete in these major contests. The Orange and Sugar bowls started in 1935, and the Cotton Bowl followed in 1937. A number of regional schools that have dropped to lower divisions competed on the national stage in this earlier era.

In the early part of the 20th century, Duquesne was a perennial national power: they defeated Mississippi State 13-12 in the 1937 Orange Bowl. After fielding no teams for 19 seasons, the Dukes re-emerged in the 1970's to become one of the top mid-major programs in the nation.

Carnegie Tech, also a powerhouse in the 1920's, when they twice beat Notre Dame, and early 30's, made their first major bowl appearance in 1939 in the Sugar Bowl, losing to TCU 15-7.

The University of Pittsburgh played a major role in altering the landscape of bowl play in 1956. Georgia's governor, a segregationist, tried to step in and stop the Sugar Bowl against Georgia Tech when he realized the Pitt team featured an African-American player, Bob Grier. The Panthers agreed to play only if Grier was allowed to compete and the sections of Pitt fans were not segregated. Though Pitt lost the game to Georgia Tech 7-0, they claimed a bigger victory for the cause of integration.

While both Pitt and Penn State have sealed national titles in bowl games, perhaps the most dramatic bowl moment came in 1982 for the Panthers. Pitt trailed Georgia 20-17 with only 35 seconds left, but Pitt quarterback Dan Marino fired a 33-yard touchdown pass to tight end John Brown for a come from behind win, 24-20. This marked the winningest three-year run in Pitt history, and the third consecutive post-season bowl victory for the team.

For the past 75 plus years, regional schools have staked their place on the national stage - cementing their claims to national championships, breaking barriers and bowling over local fans with their play.

Anne Madarasz is the Director of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, which features the story of college football.