Two shades of blue

Charles O’Reilly Doud, a pretty fair UCLA football player in the 1950s, will sit in the Rose Bowl today as his Bruins play Notre Dame and squirm in discomfort when the Fighting Irish make mistakes.

There is no question that Chuck Doud will root for UCLA. Still, there remains a bit of the Leprechaun in him.

“This is the only time I root against the Irish,” he says.

Doud, 75, is a stockbroker and partner at Crowell Weedon. He has four sons, four daughters and 19 grandchildren. None of them went to Notre Dame, though several tried.

“Wasn’t ever able to get them in,” he says.

Doud was a starting defensive tackle for UCLA in the 1952 season, then a two-way starter at tackle in ‘53, the year the NCAA mandated two-way play. He was a co-captain on the Bruins team that lost the Jan. 1, 1954 Rose Bowl game to Michigan State, 28-20. The 1952 Bruins finished second in the conference with an 8-1 record and were ranked No. 6 nationally. The ’53 team went 8-2 and was ranked No. 5 by the Associated Press.

Both of Doud’s years at UCLA, he made All-Pacific Coast and he even got some All-American mention his senior year.

Still, despite that success, Doud left part of his heart in South Bend, Ind.

“I played at Villanova Prep in Ojai, and I always wanted to play at Notre Dame,” Doud says. “So I went and tried out as a walk-on.”

That was 1949, when Notre Dame had All-American players Leon Hart, Jim Martin and Bobby Williams. Hart was an end who won the Heisman Trophy that year, Martin often played tackle next to him (and was a linebacker and placekicker in the pros) and Williams was the quarterback who led the Frank Leahy-coached team to the national championship.

Doud was a freshman defensive tackle serving mostly as hamburger for the No. 1 offense in practice.

“One time, I got through Hart and Martin and into the backfield and got a shot at Williams,” Doud recalls. “I remember coaches screaming, and then we lined up for the next play and the next thing I remember is somebody standing over me and asking: ‘Is he breathing?’ ”

By the spring of ‘51, Doud was in Notre Dame’s plans well enough to play the entire Old-Timers game at defensive tackle. Still, there was no scholarship forthcoming and the Doud family of Oxnard had three other children in college, all being paid for by a hardworking farming father.

“My mother called and told me that I better get my butt home,” Doud says, “or we’d find my father dead in the field.”

Doud remained a non-scholarship player his sophomore year and never got into a Notre Dame varsity game. In those days, that was usually reserved for upperclassmen. He got to play in several junior varsity games and gleefully recalls when the Irish jayvees traveled to Fort Smith, Ark., to play the Arkansas JVs.

“We scored the first seven times we had the ball,” he says, “and all seven were called back. We ended up winning by one point and even the Arkansas fans were booing the officials at the end.”

Leahy told Doud he would do his best to get him a scholarship for his junior year, but when nothing was forthcoming by the start of fall practice in ‘51, Doud began practice with the Bruins, where he found Coach Red Sanders more sympathetic to his scholarship needs.

Still, he held out hope.

“The third day of practice at UCLA,” he says, “I made one last call to Notre Dame, but they said there was no scholarship money left. I had told Coach Sanders that I would leave immediately if Notre Dame came through, and he said he understood.”

Notre Dame played UCLA twice in the 1960s, then not again until last year. And never, until today, in Los Angeles. But Doud still kept up with his teammates, fellow players who have become lifelong friends, when the Irish came to play USC.

“There was no question who I rooted for in that game,” Doud says. “Still isn’t.”

Those who played under the legendary Leahy at Notre Dame long ago formed a group named The Leahy Boys. It is a special club, dwindling in size as the years pass. Doud, even though he never played in a varsity game for the Irish, was made an honorary member.

“That’s a big thrill for me,” he says.

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bill.dwyre@latimes.com