Love Of A Lifetime

EVEN ON THE 20-INCH SCREEN OF A BLACK-AND-WHITE ZENITH, NOTHING LOOKED MORE GLORIOUS TO AN 11-YEAR-OLD IN FROZEN FOND DU LAC THAN FOOTBALL FANS IN SHIRTSLEEVES IN SUNNY PASADENA. LIKE MANY WISCONSINITES, I FELL HARD FOR THE BADGERS ON JAN. 1, 1963, when they played Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl.

The first three quarters were a disaster. Pete Beathard and the top-ranked Trojans torched the No. 2 Badgers, and as the score grew lopsided, the hopeful exhortations from those crammed into our tiny den turned into groans and then, finally, silence. What can you say about a 42-14 blowout?

As the final quarter began, I had the den to myself. I was lying alone on my stomach a few feet from the screen, head propped in my hands, as the comeback began. Vander Kelen to Richter. First down. Vander Kelen to Richter. Now we were in USC territory. Holland on the carry. Touchdown! And on it went.

Soon there was another Badgers TD. Then a safety. Now the den was packed again, but I wasn't budging. Vander Kelen to Richter. The Trojans could not stop us. Now we were yelling at the TV. Hurry up! That's not a penalty! Call time! Vander Kelen to Richter. Touchdown!

The game ended on a USC punt that the Badgers came within a whisker of blocking. Final score: Southern Cal 42, Wisconsin 37. Some still say it was the most exciting Rose Bowl ever. Who knew that the proud loss would be viewed as the high-water mark of Badgers football for the next three decades?

I was too young to realize it, but Madison and the university and, really, the country were on the cusp of a divide. In Fond du Lac we read about the student protests over the Dow Chemical recruiters and the Vietnam War. The campus was little more than an hour away, but the sit-ins, the charges up Bascom Hill, the tear gas, the angry police... UW could've been in a whole different world. My parents had friends in Madison with kids my age, so sometimes they would bring me along on visits. During one of them I happened into the living room to find my parents and their friends on the edge of their seats, glaring at one another across the room, jaws clenched, coffee cups held tight.

"The war is wrong," the friends said.

"How can you turn your back on our country and our soldiers?" my mother wanted to know.

My parents' friends knew that, in 1964, everyone in our family was required to contribute to the weekly letter sent to my brother, Tom, who was in the Army, stationed in Pleiku, in the central highlands of South Vietnam, and that our involvement went beyond the papers and the nightly news. (Tom would go on to a 30-year career in the Army, retiring as a full colonel.)

I stuck with the team, listening to most of the games on the radio, watching the few that were televised. As the Badgers slowly descended into the second division of the Big Ten, the coach of the 1963 Rose Bowl team, Milt Bruhn—the other Uncle Miltie—was fired, as were, with one exception (Dave McClain, who died on the job in 1986), a succession of unsuccessful coaches.