It’s a comeback story years, sometimes decades in the making.
Indiana hasn’t played in the Rose Bowl since its futile attempt to stop USC running back O.J. Simpson on Jan. 1, 1968, making the team’s return this week to face UCLA something of a now-or-never pilgrimage for those who played in that game.
“We have a very thin group of guys who are still around,” said Harry Gonso, the Hoosiers’ quarterback that day 56 years ago, “if you understand what I mean.”
Minnesota was once such a Rose Bowl regular — appearing in the New Year’s Day game as the Big Ten champion in 1961 and ‘62 — that Dave Mona, then a freshman writing for the school’s student newspaper, decided not to splurge on the $49 round-trip train fare to Pasadena to attend the latter game.