Many Gave a Big No to Big Nine Contract : Rose Bowl: In 1946, no one was happy about having those Midwest teams out here every year--especially a reporter.

Looking back 47 years, to the day I was a reporter at the 1949 Rose Bowl game for the Pasadena Star-News, the mind becomes quite selective. Some memories are hazy, out of focus. Some are as sharp as if it were yesterday.

The sharpest recollection, even more than the disappointment in the loss by California, 20-14, to Northwestern--and that was a terrible thing for a Berkeley graduate, class of ‘42, to endure--is of the universal dislike of the pact between the Big Nine and the Pacific Coast Conference.

The Big Nine, for those not history minded, did not become the Big Ten until 1953 when Michigan State was accepted. (And now that they have Penn State, why isn’t it the Big Eleven?)

The pact with the Tournament of Roses had been signed in late 1946 and nothing that occurred in the two years had changed the thinking of Southern Californians. At least, not for West Coast natives.

Undefeated Army, with hometown favorite Glenn Davis, the Claremont Courier, as the Heisman Trophy winner, had been an overwhelming choice to play in the 1947 game when the conference pact was announced. Pleas to wait one year to start the new series were rejected by Big Nine officials.

Reaction was predictable. Columnists zeroed in on the pact.

Who that saw the front page of the Los Angeles Times can forget sports editor Paul Zimmerman’s response? He wrote, in a box with a black border:

“In Memorium. The Rose Bowl. Born January 1, 1916. Died November 21, 1946. Rest in Peace.”

Then followed two New Year’s Day drubbings, 45-14 by Illinois over UCLA and then 49-0 by Michigan over USC. Then for the 1949 game, the Big Nine had the gall to send its second-place team, beaten, 28-0, by Michigan, to play California.

It wasn’t until a few years later that the Midwesterners agreed to send their champion each year, after it became evident that coming to Pasadena created more interest among conference schools than winning the championship did.

As if all that weren’t enough, Bob Voigts, the boy-wonder coach of the Wildcats, issued an order that all West Coast writers would be barred from the Brookside Park practice field in Pasadena, But all others were welcome.

The late Rube Samuelsen, my boss as sports editor of the Star-News, was president of the National Football Writers Assn., but he too was included in the ban.

“I wonder what the reaction would be if Pappy Waldorf barred ‘foreign newspapermen’ from California’s practice sessions at Riverside?” he wrote. “He won’t, however. He knows better.”

The climate on game day did little to improve things. A yellowed clipping tells the story:

“Gloom thicker than the murky weather outside pervaded California’s dressing room,” began my Jan. 2 locker room story.

Curiously, the most memorable incident in the game for me was not Art Murakowski’s phantom touchdown--California supporters all called it that--nor Ed Tunnicliff’s brilliant 43-yard touchdown run in the last two minutes to wipe out Cal’s 14-13 lead,

It was when Jackie Jensen went down.

On the second play of the second half. Jensen, perhaps the finest athlete to ever attend Cal, had scored earlier on a 67-yard run. In an era of two-way players, Jensen was also the Bears’ best defensive back and one of the best punters in the country.

He had taken a handoff from quarterback Dick Erickson, started out around right end when he suddenly fell. A pulled hamstring kept him from returning.

“It was the same play he had scored on earlier,” Waldorf said. “He just hit a soft spot in the turf when he started to cut. We really missed him at the end. Jackie’s the kind of a player who always seems to find a way to win.”

Late in the Stanford game, in which California barely hung on to a 7-6 victory to advance to the Rose Bowl, Jensen was back to punt on fourth and 31. The way the Indians had been moving the football, it seemed inevitable they could score again.

Jensen took the snap and ran up the middle for 32 yards, and the Bears were able to run out the clock.

“If he hadn’t done that, we might not be here in Pasadena,” Waldorf said.

Waldorf, big, jovial Pappy, fills a huge spot in the memory bank. If he had not had to play Rose Bowl games, he might be considered one of the great coaches in history. For three years, 1948 through 1950, his teams did not lose a regular-season game. The Bears were 29-0 with one tie.

But three Rose Bowl losses did him in: 20-14 to Northwestern, 17-14 to Ohio State and 14-6 to Michigan.

And I suffered through all of them.