A History of Ticket Trouble : Rose Bowl: Mazzone was accused of buying players’ tickets in 1978. UCLA’s Young regrets recent decision.

Angelo Mazzone III, the former UCLA athletic official who was allowed to buy 4,000 Rose Bowl tickets from the school, was accused by football players in 1978 of buying complimentary tickets from them at up to three times face value.

A Pacific 10 Conference investigation, which included interviews with football and basketball players, and UCLA officials, found there was an inappropriate use of the tickets. But neither Mazzone nor the school was charged with violating conference rules.

The players, who agreed to talk only on the condition their names not be used, said Mazzone had been brokering tickets since 1973, which would have been a violation of NCAA rules. At the time, Mazzone categorically denied ever purchasing players’ tickets, as did then-UCLA Athletic Director J.D. Morgan.

All of the players said they were paid in cash in sealed envelopes. “Angelo was in charge of the whole operation,” one former player said.

Mazzone did not return calls from The Times on Tuesday.

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young, meanwhile, said Tuesday he regrets approving the controversial sale of the 4,000 Rose Bowl tickets to Mazzone, who resigned as associate athletic director in 1982. The sale was linked to a $100,000, tax-deductible donation Mazzone made to the school for athletic scholarships.

Young said angry reaction from UCLA alumni who were unable to buy extra tickets after the school said none were available has prompted him to rethink the decision.

“If I were to do this all over again . . . I would have made a different decision,” he said.

Local tickets brokers said Tuesday that UCLA could have generated a lot more than $100,000 for athletic scholarships if it had sold the 4,000 Rose Bowl tickets to the highest bidder, rather than selling them to a university booster.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a school helping out their athletic department, but they could have made $200,000 more from me,” said Jerry Adelman, owner of Murray’s Tickets, one of Los Angeles’ oldest and largest ticket agencies. He paid $400 for some of the 2,000 tickets the agency handled and had to turn away customers.

Fred Ross, the owner of Front Row Center ticket agency in Westwood, said he also would have liked to bid on tickets to the Rose Bowl, which featured a matchup between UCLA and Wisconsin. Tickets to the game became hot commodities and sold for hundreds of dollars more than face value.

Ross said his office was deluged with calls from desperate tour operators who didn’t have enough tickets for Wisconsin fans.

“We did what everyone else did, which was to scratch and claw for every individual ticket we were fortunate enough to buy,” Ross said. “If UCLA is going to sell large blocks of tickets to sporting events, they should throw it open to everybody, the general public included.”

Young said Tuesday he was told the $46 tickets ended up in the hands of Wisconsin fans who bought Rose Bowl tour packages. It’s unknown how much Mazzone’s tickets eventually cost fans, but the day before the game, scalpers were getting $450 to more than $1,000 from Wisconsin fans.

Young said UCLA never considered offering the 4,000 tickets for sale to ticket brokers but that Mazzone was eligible to buy tickets under an agreement between the Pac-10 and Big Ten conferences and the nonprofit Tournament of Roses Assn.

Young and Joseph D. Mandel, UCLA vice chancellor for legal affairs, said the agreement allows UCLA to sell Rose Bowl tickets to students, alumni, donors and others connected to the university, but required the school to seek approval for a public sale to anyone outside the university community.

Young reiterated that UCLA officials wanted to sell a large block of tickets because they feared in early December having to pay for unsold tickets. Last year, the University of Washington ended up having to pay for about $240,000 in unsold tickets.

But ticket brokers and travel agents in Los Angeles and Wisconsin said that by early December the prospect of a desirable matchup between UCLA and Wisconsin made it highly unlikely tickets would go begging.

Ticket agencies began placing their first ads in The Times seeking Rose Bowl tickets on Nov. 21. Wisconsin tour operators began trying to line up Rose Bowl tickets for their travel packages in late November. The Badgers didn’t clinch the Rose Bowl berth until Dec. 4 with a victory over Michigan State in Tokyo.

Mazzone reportedly sold the tickets through the Al Brooks Theatre Ticket Agency, but it is unclear how much money he received. Jay Brooks, owner of Brooks Tickets, has declined to comment.

Funjet Vacations, a Milwaukee tour operator, bought about 3,000 travel packages from Brooks’ agency that included Rose Bowl tickets, hotel accommodations and transportation for $600 to $700 each.

Dave Wade, Funjet’s vice president of marketing, said Tuesday that he did not record the exact locations of the Rose Bowl tickets, so there is no way now to tell if they came from Mazzone. He estimated the cost of the Rose Bowl tickets at about $150 each.

An investigation by Wisconsin Atty. Gen. James Doyle indicated that 2,788 Wisconsin fans paid scalpers’ prices for tickets, while 1,000 were stranded with no tickets.

Representatives of Travgo Travel, a Madison, Wisc., travel agency, had to pay $121,000 more than anticipated for 720 scalped tickets in the days before the game, owner Curt Mueller said.

How does Mueller feel about a UCLA booster receiving 4,000 at face value when he and his clients were forced to pay a lot more to brokers and scalpers?

“I think that’s highly suspect,” Mueller said. “Suppose the bowl game was in Wisconsin. How would those people out there feel if they brought their families to Madison, Wisconsin, and were treated that shabbily?”

Times staff writers Ralph Frammolino and Wendy Witherspoon contributed to this story.