COLLEGE FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : ALOHA BOWL : Emotions Build for Donahue

It wasn’t as if Terry Donahue needed another emotional angle to add to today’s game against Kansas. The mere fact that this will be his final game as UCLA’s head coach after 20 years on the job is enough to cause a lump in his throat when he takes the field.

But his emotional feelings will stretch to the other side of the field as well. It was at the University of Kansas where Donahue began his coaching career after playing at UCLA as a defensive tackle in the mid 60s.

After graduating, he joined the staff of Pepper Rodgers, then the Kansas head coach, as a 23-year-old assistant in charge of the defensive line. Donahue spent four years as a Kansas assistant, then returned to Westwood as an assistant when Rodgers was named head coach of the Bruins in 1971.

“The fact that we are playing Kansas,” Donahue said, “is a real sentimental part of the game for me.”

He also has another link to Kansas. It was there that he met Andrea Sogas, a student who went on to become his wife.

“She’s a Kansas grad,” Donahue said, “but there’s no question who she’s rooting for in this game.”

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After having won what was then an NCAA-record seven consecutive bowl games, UCLA has played in only two postseason games in the last six years. The Bruins defeated Illinois, 6-3, in the 1991 Hancock Bowl, but lost to Wisconsin, 21-16, in the 1994 Rose Bowl. . . . The Bruins have made one appearance in the Aloha Bowl, defeating Florida, 20-16, in 1987.