Sept. 23, 2003
By Tom Ables
Admittedly, it was a little startling when Frank Aronoff reminded me recently that I had seen the last game ever coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg. True! It was here in San Diego, at Balboa Stadium, in the Aztecs' closing game of the 1946 season against College of the Pacific (COP, later UOP). And the revered Mr. Stagg went out a winner that day, 19-13.
Quarterback for the Tigers was a freshman named Eddie LeBaron, who went on to fame in both college and the NFL (Dallas Cowboys) as one of the most deceptive ball handlers ever. And Eddie drop-kicked the extra points (well, he made one of them).
An interesting sidelight on that COP team: Many (most?) of their players were students at Stockton CC because COP had only upper division classes. This was right after World War II, and there was a lot of flexibility on eligibility then. Sadly, the story behind the story of Stagg's retirement was a movement by his talented players to have him replaced by Larry Siemering, who did take over the next year and installed the wide-open offense they craved.
While Frank (who I hasten to point out was not there for Stagg's last game) and I were reminiscing, he suggested that we talk about some of the interesting stadiums where the Aztecs have played through the years.
For example, the Aztecs played Occidental in a night game at the Rose Bowl in 1930! The Aztecs won, 14-7. In 1931, the Aztecs played the first-ever night game at Arizona Stadium, beating the Wildcats, 8-0. Bring on those night games!
On the home front, the first game ever played in Aztec Bowl was in 1936, when the Aztecs beat Occidental, 7-0, with a large crowd of 7,500 showing up to see the new stadium.
Moving ahead through the years, in 1969, the Aztecs played at Texas-Arlington in the stadium that was later to become the home of the Texas Rangers. The Aztecs won, 27-10.
The 1972 season took the Aztecs to two famous stadiums, both in Texas. The first was in Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, where the Aztecs beat North Texas, 25-0. The second was in Houston's Astrodome, losing to the University of Houston, 49-14.
It was odd playing in Texas Stadium, with the open roof over the field. There was heavy rain in the first half, and the field was sopping wet, while the fans were snug and dry, just the way they planned it, of course. As I remember the artificial turf they had then, it seemed like a cross between a shag rug and a sponge. It did hold water! But it was a fancy, ahead-of-its-time stadium.
By contrast, the Houston "Astro-dump," as the Aztecs renamed it, was awful. Their old artificial turf had no sub-surface. They just rolled it out over the dirt floor, which left a lot of irregular areas (especially after the rodeo that had just been there), along with ripped seams in a few places. Luckily the Aztecs had few injuries (other than losing a bad game), but during the band-night halftime festivities, lots of young musicians limped away with sprained ankles!
Going back in time again, I remember when we played Loyola in old Gilmore Stadium in Hollywood in 1946. After beating the Lions, 20-7, the Aztecs went to the dressing room to find no hot water. Probably just a coincidence.
Probably one of the biggest crowds ever to see a college football game in Anaheim Stadium was in 1970, with 39,005 on hand to see the Aztecs play Long Beach State in a crucial conference game. A majority of that big crowd was from San Diego, who went home unhappy after the 49ers won, 27-11. It was a major disappointment, but I do remember resisting the temptation to jump off the upper deck!
Perhaps the rarest treat was at the end of the 1981 season when the Aztecs played Air Force in the "Mirage Bowl" in Tokyo's Olympic Stadium. There were 85,000 people packed in, most of whom didn't have a clue about American football, but they had "directors" on the sidelines to prompt cheers at the right times. They even provided red-and-black pom-poms for the fans on our side of the field. After a fine first half, our Aztecs seemed to lose focus, and we lost, 21-16.
There were a lot of fascinating side-trips and events that made this an all-time treat for the team, including a trip to Kamakura, with the world's largest Buddha statue. But out of it all, I remember the special treat for one young Aztec player who ran into the stadium and all the way up the steps to light the Olympic flame at the top of the stadium.
Two trips to the Sun Bowl in El Paso stick in my mind. One, in 1983, brought a freak weather change. From a warm afternoon, it quickly changed, and by the end of the game, there was a full blizzard. By actual count, there were 18 people left in the stands at the final gun. The other trip was even colder in its own way. It was 1978 - the Aztecs' first game in the WAC. To that point, we had pretty much owned UTEP; in '77 we beat them 44-7.
But not that night.
Things didn't go well: the Miners won, 31-24, and I'll never forget the high-decibel chant of the crowd that began even before the game ended, and continued as a serenade all the way to the dressing room: WELCOME TO THE WAC! WELCOME TO THE WAC! I can still hear it. It was ugly.
The Aztecs have also played in many of America's most famous and recognizable stadiums, including games against Wisconsin in fabled Camp Randall Stadium, where the fans literally make the stadium sway; Stanford Stadium; Husky Stadium at the University of Washington, the only places where I ever saw a crowd do "The Wave" and make it an intimidating weapon were Owen Field (University of Oklahoma) and Autzen Stadium (University of Oregon).
And, of course, Ohio Stadium earlier this season, where the Aztecs beat the defending national champion Buckeyes everywhere but on the scoreboard before losing, 16-13, prompting a big segment of the huge crowd of more than 104,000 to give our Aztecs a standing ovation as they left the field! And much of the game, their crowd was so quiet that you could actually hear the small group of maybe 200 Aztec fans in the stands cheering our team. It was unreal.
(NOTE: A special note of thanks to Frank Aronoff for his help in most of the columns I write. We're a pretty good "combination historian" for the Aztecs. I have a zillion memories that go back a long way; Frank has all the details on his computer. Between us, we've got it covered. Thanks, Frank)