The UCLA Game May be a Business Trip for IU Football, but For Bill Murphy it's a Trip Down Memory Lane

Image: Indiana University Athletics

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Editor’s Note: a special thank you to Amanda Pavelka and Bill Murphy for sharing the memories of the 1967 Hoosiers and their trip to the Rose Bowl.

When the Hoosiers travel west later this week to play the UCLA Bruins, it’ll mark the first time IU has played in the Rose Bowl Stadium since the 1967 team won the Big Ten championship and went to the Rose Bowl against O.J. Simpson’s USC Trojans. It was a season that earned the Hoosiers the nickname of the ‘Cardiac Kids’ as they played in many close games.

Bill Murphy and his family have been an IU football season ticket holders since 1969 and following the Hoosiers since 1956. He even wrote a book commemorating that 1967 team for the 50th anniversy of the trip to the Rose Bowl aptly named ‘The Cardiac Kids: A Season to Remember’.

For the current Hoosiers the journey to play UCLA is a business trip. But for those who are old enough to remember, it’s a trip down memory lane.

Bill Murphy was like every 15-year old boy in 1967, he loved his Hoosiers and would do anything to see them defeat the hated Purdue Boilermakers in the 1967 Old Oaken Bucket Game where, with a win, IU would punch their ticket to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. He couldn’t get a ticket for the game at Memorial Stadium, so he ran from end-to-end outside of the stands to get a glance of his heroes Jade Butcher, Harry Gonzo and Terry Cole through peepholes in the fencing put a feather in the cap of a great season.

“That was the epitome of all the games. It was just incredible. Bloomington was euphoric. Terry Cole ran for 147 yards that day, a career high. Everybody was just perfect that day. That night we received a phone call that the Rose Bowl Committee had invited us to the Rose Bowl. Pasadena was a town started by Hoosiers. Its original name was the Indiana Colony. We sent out 35 chartered planes of people going to Pasadena— the most that had ever been at the time. They had a Disneyland day for IU and of course the Rose Bowl Parade featured an IU float with a block I and 7 IU cheerleaders.” Murphy said. (He wasn’t able to attend the Rose Bowl game — he was only 15).

“The whole game was exhausting, even for my 15 year old self. They transformed the Knothole section to bleachers for extra seating to accommodate the sell-out crowd and unfortunately I couldn’t get in. So I went end zone to end zone and watched using the peepholes on either end.”

The Hoosiers entered the 1967 season with no real expectations to win the conference or make it to the Rose Bowl, but this team was special and it started in a comeback win against another rival, Kentucky.

“Beating Kentucky for the first game of the 1967 season. Down 10-0 at half. Gonzo ran and passed over 100 yards. (IU) Held Kentucky scoreless after halftime and missed a field goal and 2-pt conversion with the 2nd touchdown and still won 12-10.” Murphy explained.

“Pont brought I formation and 4-4 defense innovative offense and defense at that time. ‘The team believed in themselves’ Pont said postgame. He credited a preseason team gathering/bbq at Geist and ‘We’ve got the whole world in our hands” motto (song/chant) for bringing the team together.’”

Sports, especially college football, bring generations together. When Hoosier fans descend on Pasadena this Saturday, they will carry the hopes and memories of the past generations who rooted for the cream and crimson to make it back to the Rose Bowl someday.

While it is not THE ROSE BOWL, the stadium is still a piece of college football history. Murphy didn’t think it would take this long to see his Hoosiers back on that field, and definitely not in a Big Ten Conference game.

“Actually, no. I thought that under Bill Mallory we would make it. And we were so close one year— Michigan State beat us out. So no, I didn’t think it would take this long.  If you’d have told me 40 years ago that we are going to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, but it’s not on January 1, I would’ve said “oh you’re crazy!” He said.

Unfortunately Murphy will not be making the trip out to UCLA to see his team look to go 3-0, but he has a message for the fans making the trip.

“They need to take it all in. They need to look at it from the outside. They need to look at the Rose Bowl that’s on the stadium and the IU commemorative brick on the way in. They need to take it all in the field is beautiful. You’re going down underground. It’s incredible. It really is.”

When Murphy tunes into NBC on Saturday night he will be transported back to the that season to remember.

“I will see Pont, Isenbarger, Gonzo, Butcher, Cruzan, Cole, Ken Kaczmarek, Al Gage  and Eric Stohlberg all running on the fields. I’ll see the thousands of fans that made the trip down.” He said.

Saturday’s game is a chance for a new generation of IU fans to make their own memories.