Do players and coaches realize how much a bowl game can mean to a fan?
I’m not sure. But I know, (dramatic pause) I owe my life to one.
Let me explain.
In 1965 the MSU football team was phenomenal. There probably hasn’t been a better Spartan team since. They went undefeated, were No. 1 in the country and went to the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, 1966.
Led by legends like defensive end Bubba Smith, linebacker Charlie “Mad Dog” Thornhill (father of senior linebacker Josh Thornhill) and coached by Hugh Duffy Daugherty, this team was unstoppable.
MSU students of the time were crazy about Spartan football. Saturdays meant nothing more than pure pigskin mania. When the regular season ended with the Big Ten title, they flocked the MSU Union to buy coveted tickets to Pasadena for the big game.
Kathy Nelson was one such fan. She walked from her McDonel Hall dorm room to the Union with her girlfriends, Ruth, Nancy and Linda. There they waited for a “long, long time,” to purchase their tickets, all the while talking with the people around them in line.
Behind them were a group of guys, “who could only be described as kind of geeky now,” Kathy jokes. There was the oddball Richard, the ultrasmart boy John, the party kid Tom and the big red head, Larry.
The girls and boys mingled and flirted and after they bought their tickets and exchanged phone numbers and goodbyes, Ruth leaned over to Kathy and whispered in her ear, “The big red head is yours.”
The two gangs who met waiting for Rose Bowl tickets hung out a few times before the California trip, getting to know each other. Despite what Ruth had told Kathy, Kathy ended up on a few dates with Tom, not Larry.
Then the big trip came.
The eight flew across the country on the same flight and shacked up in the same hotel, on the same floor. They woke up early on game day together and rode the same bus from Long Beach to Pasadena to watch the Rose Parade.
Their spirits were high in general, but especially about the game. MSU had beaten UCLA, its opponent that day, earlier in the season by three or four touchdowns. Everyone wearing green and white expected a win.
But the Bruins, led by future Heisman Trophy winner quarterback Gary Beban, had other plans. As the sun burned in the bright California sky, the perfect season ended with four first-half turnovers and a 14-12 loss.
Kathy, Larry, Nancy, Linda, Tom, Richard, Ruth and John boarded the bus to go back to the hotel in silence. The fans that had been so raucous on the way to the game sat deflated and tired, a flawless season destroyed.
“It was just so quiet,” Kathy says. “It was like the wind was knocked right out of your sales. We really thought we were going to win.”
No, the team didn’t win, although it was still named the consensus national champion. The college students returned to MSU soon after with fond memories and nice tans, but without the real story they’d been hoping to tell.
But the trip wasn’t completely pointless. They had made friends. The boys and girls continued to hang out after the trip. One day Larry’s roommate threw a party and all the girls went.
That’s when it all came together.
Kathy claims Larry picked her up, and Larry stubbornly assists that it was Kathy who came after him.
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
My parents got married two years later, on Oct. 14, 1967. They are still married. They have three children, two of whom now attend MSU. They have a dog named Duffy Daugherty. They have season football tickets and season basketball tickets.
And whether they candidly admit it, part of their love of MSU sports must lie in knowing that it was their beginning. Without a Big Ten title that year, without stars like Smith and Thornhill, who knows - maybe they would have never met.
“Oh sure, I think it was fate,” Kathy said. “He lived in Holmes, I lived in McDonel. I don’t know how I would have ever met him.”
Sports have a funny way of making things happen, bringing people together and giving people something to believe in.
One more win MSU - that’s all we need, and not just because we love football.
You never know whose life you could be changing.
Krista Latham, the State News sports editor, can be reached at lathamkr@msu.edu.
