1962 Badger game

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Doc Gopher

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It's been 51 years but the sting of Bobby Bell's roughing the passer penalty still hurts. I still remember the ref's name,
Dr. Robert Jones ( a dentist from Ann Arbor, Michigan). After the call, Warmath was called for 15 more yards for unsportsmanlike
conduct and Wisconsin scored to go ahead 14 to 9. The Badgers kicked off and Duane Blaska and the Gophs mounted a drive
aided by some make-up calls by the refs but eventually fell short. Didn't mean to rant but had to get it off my chest.
Any other old timers have memories?
 

Way before my time, but I just heard Bobby Bell talk about it with Barreiro. Great segment.
 

I remember it well. Totally BS call. The kind of call that makes you wonder if games are rigged.
 

Listened to the game as a young lad with my Dad on WCCO. I think it was Halsey Hall who went absolutely bonkers.
 

ruppertflywheel said:
Listened to the game as a young lad with my Dad on WCCO. I think it was Halsey Hall who went absolutely bonkers.
Click to expand...

Lots of stories about Halsey 'having a few' during Twins games. Was he during Gopher games?....don't remember hearing any.
 


Don't remember that game, but one of my earliest "clear" football memories was the 1963 Rose Bowl (which the win against the Gophers assured the Badgers' participation) in which Wisconsin mounted that unbelievable comeback only to lose to USC 42-37.

VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter . . .
 

Doc Gopher said:
It's been 51 years but the sting of Bobby Bell's roughing the passer penalty still hurts. I still remember the ref's name,
Dr. Robert Jones ( a dentist from Ann Arbor, Michigan). After the call, Warmath was called for 15 more yards for unsportsmanlike
conduct and Wisconsin scored to go ahead 14 to 9. The Badgers kicked off and Duane Blaska and the Gophs mounted a drive
aided by some make-up calls by the refs but eventually fell short. Didn't mean to rant but had to get it off my chest.
Any other old timers have memories?
Click to expand...

Memories?!?! Of the biggest screw-job in the history of B10 football?!?! The picture in the paper the next morning showed a photograph of Bell drilling VanderKelen with the ball still in his hand. Cost the Gophers 3 straight trips to Pasadena. Even the red menace conceded that the zebras helped them steal the B10 championship from the Giants of the North.

Side note - there was a bar on the east side that had the picture of Bell hitting Vanderkelen framed and hanging on the wall. Can any old timers help me out on the name of the joint?
 

50PoundHead said:
Don't remember that game, but one of my earliest "clear" football memories was the 1963 Rose Bowl (which the win against the Gophers assured the Badgers' participation) in which Wisconsin mounted that unbelievable comeback only to lose to USC 42-37.

VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter. VanderKelen-to-Richter . . .
Click to expand...

Yup, remember that well. Entertaining game. VanderKelen also started for the college all-stars vs NFL Champs which the all-stars won. Played for Vikings behind Sir Francis.

Here's a great pic and an article about that all-star game.
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/55399888/
 




GoGoGophers said:
Memories?!?! Of the biggest screw-job in the history of B10 football?!?! The picture in the paper the next morning showed a photograph of Bell drilling VanderKelen with the ball still in his hand. Cost the Gophers 3 straight trips to Pasadena. Even the red menace conceded that the zebras helped them steal the B10 championship from the Giants of the North.

Side note - there was a bar on the east side that had the picture of Bell hitting Vanderkelen framed and hanging on the wall. Can any old timers help me out on the name of the joint?
Click to expand...

I believe at one time it was in Mac & Caps. Some of the Northeast side bars that had Gopher pictures
we're the Nightcap, Stand Up Franks & Ny's
 

That was just a few months before I was born, but I remember coming out real pi$$ed......
 

Totally bogus call - Sports Illustrated slammed Jones the next week and Twin Cities TV showed the play over and over: Bell had a clean hit at the waist with his shoulder. Vander Kelen's pass fluttered up in the air behind the line of scrimmage making it clear he had been hit just as he passed - and a Gopher grabbed it in the Wisconsin backfield. This call matched an earlier one in which Bill Munsey was denied a touchdown because of "helping the runner" (commonplace today). In 50 years of following college football, I have never seen that call made except in that Wisconsin game. Instead of 7, we got 3, from a field goal. We were ahead 9-7 at the end, when the even worse call was made. The 1962 Gophers were one of my all-time favorite teams, and they lost the B1G championship because of these calls.
 

For this long-time Gopher fan, the 1962 loss to the Badgers remains the most disappointing loss since I started following the Gophers in 1955.

There was only 2:30 left in the game when Ron VanderKelen tried to hit Pat Richter with a pass. Bell, as he was tackling the Badger quarterback, hit the ball which was then intercepted by Jack Perkovich at the Minnesota 37 and was returned to the 42. Alas, Jones made his infamous call - "roughing the passer." As was mentioned earlier, Warmath was then flagged for being guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct. Instead of the Gophers having the ball at their 42 yard line, the Badgers had the ball on the Gophers 13 yard line. A few plays later Ralph Kurek scored the go-ahead and winning touchdown, 14-9; Minnesota's title hopes and visit to the Rose Bowl were dashed.

According to a quote in Mike Wilkinson's book The Autumn Warrior," Warmath confronted the game officials after the game and said: "I told those guys that they had just stolen the Big Ten championship from the finest group of young men I had ever known and I would never forgive them for the fact they had been so incompetent and so unfair."

The roughing call made national (sporting) news. In fact, a couple weeks later at the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, Bobby Bell and other All-Americans were standing in line to shake President Kennedy's hand. When an aide introduced Bell to President Kennedy his reported response to Bell was, "Bobby Bell! You're the one who got that really bad roughing call against you a couple weeks ago in that big game against Wisconsin, right?" (The Autumn Warrior page 215.)

I was a tenth grader at the time, and I have vivid memories of that season-ending game.

I wish Bobby Bell could tell the current Gopher team about the 1962 game in Madison, just as Butch Nash made his inspiring speech just before the 1977 Minnesota-Michigan game.


Go Gophers!!
 



Thanks DL for your great recap of the end of the 1962 game. A couple of footnotes about the game.
1. It had already been determined that we would not go the Rose Bowl because we had been there the last 2 years
but it did cause us to lose the Big Ten Championship.
2. There was a bar that had a picture of the play and a picture of the ref in wanted for robbery" poster in the Twin Cities.
A buddy of mine used to go there. I will ask him the name of the bar.
Painful memories but its not like I'm obsessed by it talking about it 51 years later. Get me off the ledge.
 

I also caught Bobby Bell's segment with Barreiro yesterday and it was really great. They talked a lot about Gopher football, but Bobby also talked about growing up in the segregated South. Also about how he was recruited to be a QB, but got switched to OL/DL after his freshman year. He mentioned that Warmath was the target of some racial hatred as well for playing African American players.
 

Doc Gopher said:
Thanks DL for your great recap of the end of the 1962 game. A couple of footnotes about the game.
1. It had already been determined that we would not go the Rose Bowl because we had been there the last 2 years
but it did cause us to lose the Big Ten Championship.
2. There was a bar that had a picture of the play and a picture of the ref in wanted for robbery" poster in the Twin Cities.
A buddy of mine used to go there. I will ask him the name of the bar.
Painful memories but its not like I'm obsessed by it talking about it 51 years later. Get me off the ledge.
Click to expand...

Doc Gopher, Thanks for the correction and clarification about the Rose Bowl. Minnesota had been to the Rose Bowl the previous two years, as you mentioned; the second appearance was without a Pac 8 and Big 10 contract, and after OSU had turned down their invitation. Since the '63 Rose Bowl was under a new contract between the two conferences, I thought the Gophers were eligible for the Rose Bowl, if they had won.

Thanks, again, for the correction.


Go Gophers!!
 

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