Rose Bowl Fans Run Gantlet

More than 93,000 people braved extraordinary security and an unusual melange of fan and commuter traffic to attend the final game of the Bowl Championship Series at the Rose Bowl on Thursday. But despite lengthy waits, there were no major hitches.

It took many fans more than an hour to get from the freeways to the parking lots and another hour to get through security at the Rose Bowl gates. However, most of those headed for the game had heeded warnings of delays and arrived early enough to witness the kickoff about 5:20 p.m.

Most of the fans endured the long lines with patience, but several complained.

“This is ridiculous,” Mary Ellen Eglseder, 50, of Omaha said as she waited outside a stadium gate. “You’d think they never had a Rose Bowl game before. It’s all Osama bin Laden’s fault.”

“It’s security overkill,” said Barb Macomber, 66, of Arthur, Neb. “In Lincoln, they handle 80,000 people at every football game, and it’s never like this.”

Police examined bags and purses and patted down fans entering the stadium for the BCS final game between the universities of Miami and Nebraska.

Among the items confiscated were footballs, water bottles, backpacks and umbrellas. Fans were told they could retrieve their belongings later, but few bothered to.

Officers searched vehicles parked in the lots immediately surrounding the stadium in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco.

“The interior and underneath of every vehicle in close proximity to the Rose Bowl was searched thoroughly,” said Pasadena Police Cmdr. Mary Schander. “That meant opening the vehicle up, checking the trunk and putting the mirrors underneath.”

Undercover officers mingled with the crowd, watching for potential problems. Cameras mounted on the stadium rim monitored fans before, during and after the game.

Security was so tight that some areas were off-limits to even Rose Bowl security guards. The stadium hired a record number of security personnel to supplement the massive deployment of Pasadena police, California Highway Patrol officers and federal agents.

The game ended about 8:30 p.m., and the crowd dispersed without incident. Thursday’s game, which Miami won, 37-14, was unique in at least two respects. It was the first BCS final game played here and the first Rose Bowl game played on a workday.

The unusual scheduling created a potential for traffic problems, as fans and evening commuters tried to use the same freeways at the same time. However, the commuter traffic was lighter than usual and, despite a few delays, freeways kept moving.

At the CHP traffic center in downtown Los Angeles, Officer Spencer Ammons monitored an array of colored lights that indicate freeway traffic flow. Green means 35 mph or faster, yellow means 20 to 35 and red means below 20.

“Everything near the Rose Bowl has stayed green,” he reported shortly before 6 p.m. “Usually, at this time of day, there’s a lot of yellow.”

The influx of fans began early.

By 10 a.m., vehicles splashed with the colors of Nebraska and Miami were heading uncertainly down the Pasadena, Foothill and 134 freeways, the out-of-town occupants scanning Caltrans signs anxiously for clues on where the Rose Bowl is and how to get there. “Which way should we go?” one of them shouted to a local in another car.

“You can’t get there from here,” he responded without compassion.

Hotelier Vivian Thai, manager of the Comfort Inn on Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock, said all 57 rooms were booked three months in advance for $120 to $130 apiece, about twice the usual price.

Inflated prices also were evident at parking lots in Old Pasadena, where many of the cognoscenti parked and took shuttle buses to avoid the crush closer to the Rose Bowl.

A Hastings, Neb., couple, Bob and Jean Luther, paid $30 to park their car in a lot at Green Street and Fair Oaks Avenue, more than a mile from the game. But with kickoff only a few hours away, the price didn’t faze them.

“We’d pay anything to park,” she said.

There was evidence that the unprecedented, two-day gap between the parade and the game may have calmed things a bit.

At the Mi Piace Italian Kitchen and Bakery on Colorado Boulevard, manager Cathy Dean said lunch business was much brisker than on a regular Thursday, but not as hectic as on previous Rose Bowl days.

Extra police were able to keep the traffic moving, and surface street congestion wasn’t much heavier than usual on a weekday, said Pasadena Police Lt. Randell Taylor.

But the most direct route to the game--along Linda Vista Avenue between the 134 Freeway and the stadium--started clogging before noon as fans vied for the best parking spaces on the Brookside Park golf course surrounding much of the Rose Bowl.

The demand for parking prompted owners of some luxury homes along Linda Vista to charge as much as $25 for a space on their lawns.

Carolyn and Willis Falk were sorry about the score but pleased by the sea of fellow Nebraska fans, who apparently outnumbered Miami enthusiasts more than 2-1.

“It’s like being home in Nebraska,” Carolyn Falk said. “There’s probably no one left in Lincoln.”

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Times staff writers Sufiya Abdur-Rahman, Hector Becerra, Geriot Louima, Eric Malnic and Garret Therolf contributed to this story.