The Rose Bowl has always been the destination Indiana football fans dreamed of getting back to after the 1967 Hoosiers won the Big Ten in their “Rags to Roses” season. Since the 1968 season, an IU football trip to Pasadena seemed more like a friends trip that was planned from bar stools at Nick’s than reality. Something that was fun to talk about, but in the end never got off the ground.
Coaches came and went, but the dream was the same. Maybe one day the Hoosiers will get back to the Rose Bowl. Fans, some jokingly, said that if IU ever made it back they’d go no matter the price. That California dream became reality a few weeks ago and it has given IU fans a reason to celebrate and reminisce of seasons past.
For Andy Graham, a retired sports writer who covered Bloomington sports for 35 years (1982-2017) for the Bloomington Herald-Times, the decision to go to the Rose Bowl was made for him. It wasn’t a choice.
“I was watching the Big Ten title game versus Ohio State. And after it ended, my wife goes, this means we’re going to the Rose Bowl, right? I go, Yeah, and she goes, you’re going.” Graham told Hoosier Huddle. “So I didn’t have any choice in the matter. I appreciated her sentiments. And she’s a great person, she understands me, and she wanted to make sure I understood. Oh, yeah, you know you’re going.”
Graham’s ties to Hoosier football date all the way back to the 1940’s when his mother, Dottie, was on campus and her father was a personal friend of then-IU head coach Bo McMillian. Graham’s mother had the privilege of attending practices and meeting Hoosier legends like George Taliaferro and Pete Pihos who would help the Hoosiers win an outright Big Ten title in 1945. It was easy to see why her love of the Hoosiers developed.
Her love of the Hoosiers grew deeper and when she started dating his father, Art, a 1950 Old Oaken Bucket Game started a family tradition.
“My mom became a big fan, and when she was dating my dad in 1950 they both lived in Indianapolis. They’d both gone to Howe High School and then gone off to college. My dad was a Butler guy, but he was the editor of a regional construction magazine, and knew a lot of Purdue engineers. So in 1950 he got tickets to the Bucket Game up in West Lafayette (a 13-0 IU loss). My mom and dad were going to go, and the forecast turned really sour. It was going to be like wind chill minus-18 and snow flurries and stuff.” Graham explained. “And Dad said, ‘Hey, why don’t we just hang here in Indianapolis. We’ll listen to the game on the radio. I’ll take you out to Sam Subway after to have a nice dinner, and we’ll have a nice day.’ Apparently mom looked at him quite imperiously and said ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m going.’
And so they went, and that was the start the family lore has it that they went to 47 straight bucket games, like it became kind of a they got married, and it became kind of a romantic thing for them, that they would always come hell or high water, go to the bucket games, until my dad passed away in 1998.”
That passion was passed on to their son Andrew (Andy) who would play his high school football at Westfield High School. Graham would attend games with his neighbor Dr. John MacDougall, an avid IU football fan and a top thoracic surgeon.
“(Dr. MacDougall) was the guy, our neighbor, who was probably the best thoracic surgeon in the Midwest. He had season tickets. He was an IU guy. And I can remember countless times it seems like I would play my high school football game on Friday night, and we all beat to hell. And they would pack me in to the back of Dr McDougall station wagon, and I would just lie down flat as before, the year before the era of seat belts, I would lie down flat on the backseat just to rest my beaten body from Friday night to Saturday morning, and Saturday morning we’d be driving down to Bloomington for the IU games” Graham said.
Graham, who shared his love of the Hoosiers through his writing for 35 years can’t wait to get out to Pasadena for the ‘Granddaddy of Them All”
“The marketing label, the ‘Granddaddy of Them All’. It was a true thing. It was the big one. So it was great fun all those years to watch it. It seemed like the day was always sunny. It was like a 430 kick off Eastern. So we’d get to see this beautiful field, this beautiful setting. And watch the Big 10 champ play the PAC 12 champ. And by the third quarter, the sun’s going down and setting over the San Gabriels. And you can see the beautiful sunset images. And it was finished in the dark with the lights. And it was just a glow, just a glorious scene to see every single year. And so that was, that was something that we all just kind of fantasized about. It’s like, ‘man, wouldn’t it be great if sometime the the Hoosiers actually break through and we could go’ and and for me personally, it’s wonderful to get to go to see.” Graham said.
The matchup itself is something Graham is also looking forward to as the Hoosiers have a chance to play one of the bluest of blue bloods of college football in the Alabama Crimson Tide.
“(Alabama) is the bluest of the Blue Bloods, right? It’s also the SEC-iest of the SEC. It’s the school, more than any other that, over the years, has carried the SEC banner highest, right? If you would have asked me, ‘Okay, Indiana is going to be undefeated and gets to go to the Rose Bowl. Who do you want them to play? I don’t think I could have come up with a better school than Alabama in terms of who I would love to see Indiana beat, right? So that’s, that’s, I’m tremendously excited about the game, and I also my respect for Alabama, you know, goes back to Bear Bryant, who I really respected. He was a guy who tried to integrate the SEC before anybody else tried.” Graham said.
The 2026 Rose Bowl game will be the second time that Curt Cignetti has lead the Hoosiers out west to play in the Rose Bowl. IU, and tens of thousands of fans, went to the Rose Bowl stadium to see IU play UCLA in September of 2024. Graham had planned to go, but his plans fell through at the last minute and did not make the trip to see IU beat the Bruins 42-13.
This trip has been nearly 60 years in the making. It is a reward for the loyal fans who stuck through the 1-11 seasons, saw this program lose in ways no other had. It’s remembering people like Graham’s mother and father and Dr. MacDougall who helped form that fandom. This Rose Bowl is more than just a step to the next round of the College Football Playoff.
His wife Susie was not going to let him miss this trip. Graham will be joined by his brother-in-law Mark and son Evan as they take in the full Southern California experience as the trio plan to hit the Sunset Strip and some other historical landmarks. For Graham and his family, as well as thousands of other IU football fans, California dreaming has turned into California reality.