Wallace Wade, Coach Who Took Rose Bowl East, Dies

Wallace Wade, the former Duke and Alabama football coach who brought the 1942 Rose Bowl to Durham from Pasadena, Calif., after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died this morning after a brief illness. He was 94.

Wade coached in five Rose Bowls and played in one as a member of the Brown University team that lost to Washington in 1916. He coached eight years at Alabama, where he won 61 games, lost 13 and tied 3 before going to Duke.

Wade said the Jan. 1, 1942, postseason Rose Bowl clash with Oregon State was his most memorable because he literally took charge of staging the event with three weeks left.

At the time, Californians were fearful that the Japanese would follow up on their attack on Pearl Harbor. Federal officials also discouraged gatherings of large crowds on the West Coast.

“Finally, I went down to the administration,” Wade said in a 1981 interview. “I suggested ‘Why don’t we invite ‘em to play here?’ ”

Wade said he got the go-ahead from Duke officials, then contacted officials in Pasadena.

“I told them ‘We’ll do the best we can and divide the gate receipts the way I consider to be fair.’ That’s all the contract we had,” Wade said.

The game ended with a 20-16 loss to the Beavers. The crowd of 56,000 was the third largest ever to see a game in the stadium that in 1967 was renamed in honor of Wade.

That game was the last Wade would coach until 1946, when he finished his service in the Army and returned to Duke for four years.