6. Going the wrong way in the 1929 Rose Bowl
The 1928 University of California football team included among its players a center who earned All American honors and served as team captain. Named Roy Riegels, he was a talented and smart football player, who became famous nationally for a mistake made in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1929, as the California Bears were playing the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Riegels picked up a fumble on the thirty-yard line, and in the act of evading a tackle and another blocker, got turned around, lost his bearings, saw an open field in front of him, and carried the ball sixty-nine yards in the wrong direction. A teammate finally stopped him before he crossed the wrong goal line, when he was tackled by a swarm of Yellow Jackets.
The ensuing play led to a safety, and the error only cost California two points, but Georgia Tech ended up winning the game by a score of 8-7, and the national championship. During halftime, Riegels told his coach that he was too embarrassed to return to the field for the second half. “I wanted a hole to open in the ground so I could jump in it,” Riegels later said. His entire football career, which was one of considerable success and earned the respect of teammates and opponents, came to be summed up by that one play. Over 4,000 stories of the mistake appeared in America’s newspapers since the game had been the Rose Bowl, the pre-eminent football game of the year at the time. Forty-two years later Georgia Tech inducted him into their Lettermen Club, which he accepted by saying, “Believe me, I feel I’ve earned this”.