The 1956 Rose Bowl game, played on January 2, 1956 was the 42nd Rose Bowl game. The Michigan State Spartans defeated the UCLA Bruins, 17–14. Michigan State halfback Walt Kowalczyk was named the Rose Bowl Player Of The Game. The game was played on January 2, because New Year's Day was a Sunday. It featured two of the most racially integrated college football teams of the day with six African American players for the Bruins and seven for the Spartans. This stood in stark contrast to the 1956 Sugar Bowl, where there was controversy over whether Bobby Grier from Pitt should be allowed to play and whether Georgia Tech should even play at all due to Georgia governor Marvin Griffin's opposition to integration. Only one month previous, Rosa Parks made her famous protest in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The 1956 Rose Bowl has the highest TV rating of all college bowl games, watched by 41.1% of all people in the US with TV sets.
Read more about 1956 Rose Bowl: Game Summary, Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the words rose and/or bowl:
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Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“It all ended with the circuslike whump of a monstrous box on the ear with which I knocked down the traitress who rolled up in a ball where she had collapsed, her eyes glistening at me through her spread fingers—all in all quite flattered, I think. Automatically, I searched for something to throw at her, saw the china sugar bowl I had given her for Easter, took the thing under my arm and went out, slamming the door.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)