1938: Alabama, 0 vs. California, 13

Sportswriters are the type of guys who like puns. Perhaps it’s written in their genes. And for some reason, no team is as ripe for this treatment as the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The Tide had come to Pasadena four times, and four times they’d left with a win. In the two most recent meetings, they left thoroughly victorious, beating Washington State, 24-0, in 1931 and Stanford, 29-13, in 1935.

So, when the California Bears beat the Crimson Tide, 13-0, in the 1938 Rose Bowl Game, handing them their first-ever Rose Bowl loss, sportswriters clamored for their prize-winning pun:

“The Crimson Tide was just a quick gulp for the victory thirsty Golden Bears,” wrote Bill Henry in the Los Angeles Times.

“Alabama’s Crimson Tide was just a drink of water to California’s Golden Bears today,” wrote Henry McLemore of the United Press.

“The Crimson Tide was at its ebb,” wrote former Los Angeles Examiner reporter Maxwell Stiles. “Alabama at last had lost a Rose Bowl Game.”

The California Bears, by all accounts, simply smashed their Alabama guests up and down the football field.

Their first touchdown drive started the way most of them would end – and be in the middle, as well. California’s Sam Chapman punted to Alabama’s safety, who was hit so hard by end Perry Schwartz that the ball squirted to the turf, and Schwartz recovered. Cal then used 13 consecutive power plays to score, with Vic Bottari, who ran for 137 yards and both touchdowns, punching it in.

The second scoring drive, this one in the third quarter, was an uncanny resemblance of the first. California took over on Alabama 48-yard line, and “from that point Chapman and Bottari spearheaded another outburst of organized violence,” wrote Rube Samuelson in his book, The Rose Bowl Game. Bottari again punched it in, this time from 5 yards out. Chapman missed the extra point, but it wouldn’t matter.

Alabama threatened twice in the game, reaching the Bears’ 2- and 7-yard lines, but they fumbled both times. In fact, because of the four fumbles Alabama lost, the Cal victory was criticized as one wrought with bad breaks for the Tide that, inversely, were good breaks for the Bears.

However, if you ask Henry, “That’s only half the story. ‘Bama didn’t fumble in the ordinary sense – they dropped the ball because the Bears hit them so hard they couldn’t hold it.”

Added McLemore: “Those breaks were the result of crunching tackling – tackling that stunned the man with the ball and knocked it from his hands.”

This Rose Bowl Game was also one for the ticket history books, just as the years preceding it had been. Because Cal’s sizeable alumni base received six tickets for every graduate in good standing, for the first time in history, there was no public sale of Rose Bowl Game tickets.

Attendance
89,650

Weather
73 degrees

Scoring
Second Quarter
Cal – Bottari, 4-yard run (Chapman kick good)

Third Quarter
Cal – Bottari, 5-yard run (Chapman kick failed)

Coaches
Alabama: Frank Thomas
California: Leonard “Stub” Allison

Fun Fact
In 1938, California completed an undefeated season for the first time since the Wonder Teams of the 1920s, and was rewarded with the school’s last national championship.

Individual Stats
Rushing
Cal: Bottari 34-137; Anderson 9-22; Chapman 10-33
Ala: Holm 16-70; Mosley 4-26; Kilgrow 13-33