Remembering The Men of Roses -- Unforeseen Success

This is the first installment of a seven-part series (link to part two) written by Kip Carlson about the 1941 Oregon State football team that played in the 1942 Rose Bowl. The '42 Rose Bowl is the only one in the history of the storied game that was played outside of Southern California due to fears of an attack on the U.S. West Coast following Pearl Harbor.

This story first appeared in this year's football game-day program Saturday, Sept. 17 vs. Idaho State.

Oregon State University will honor the "Men of Roses" throughout the week leading up to the culmination of events this Saturday night when the Beavers host Washington State at Reser Stadium.

In the summer of 1941, not long before Oregon State football players began reporting for training camp, it was announced Corvallis had been selected by the United States War Department as one of three sites for training camps along the West Coast.
The facility, which would be named Camp Adair, would occupy over 57,000 acres between Corvallis and Monmouth, eventually including approximately 1,700 buildings - barracks, machine shops, stores, kitchens, theaters, hospitals, and chapels - and housing between 30,000 and 50,000 soldiers and civilian employees at a time; this in an era when Corvallis' population was approximately 8,500 and Oregon State's enrollment was around 4,800.

World War II hadn't yet come to the United States, but it was on its way. How it would arrive, and what it would mean to the nation's way of life, could only be speculated upon.

Against this backdrop of uneasy uncertainty, the Beavers began working on a 1941 football season in which little was expected of them. Oregon State was coming off a 1940 campaign in which it went 5-3-1, including a 4-3-1 Pacific Coast Conference record that was good for third place behind Stanford and Washington.

Despite that being the Beavers' third straight third-place finish in the PCC, most prognosticators pegged them for a second-division finish in 1941.

Head coach Lon Stiner was entering his ninth season at Oregon State; at age 37, he was the youngest head coach in the PCC and had been in Corvallis since joining Paul Schissler's staff as an assistant in 1928. He'd already had his share of notable moments: the 1933 "Iron Men" tied Southern California to end the Trojans' 25-game winning streak, that year's team unveiled the "Pyramid Play" in which two teammates hoisted a third above them to block kicks, and the 1939 team had gone 9-1-1 and played in the Pineapple Bowl.

Six of Stiner's previous eight Beaver squads had finished at .500 or better, and he proclaimed this one could do so, as well.

Wrote Los Angeles Times sports editor Paul Zimmerman in the preseason:

"Usually a football coach at this season of the year is busy figuring better ways of getting folks to rate his team as an underdog. But not Lonnie Stiner, the Oregon State mentor," Los Angeles Times sports editor Paul Zimmerman wrote. "Lonnie, as a matter of fact, is a little sore over the fact that the experts have been overlooking his Beavers in their selections this fall.

"'The experts have unanimously voted us into a spot near the bottom of the second division,' moans Lonnie. 'I know I should be grateful to them for putting me in the position every coach likes best. But in fairness to our kids I can't accept this without saying something in their behalf.

"'The last four years we have finished in the first division – in third place the last three years and in fourth four years ago. I think I know what it takes to get into the first division.

"'I think I know our kids as well as anyone and I just can't believe they will be pushed into the second division. Of course, I realize the experts are going to laugh at this. That's O.K.

"'Well, let it stand until we have finished our first game with Southern California. Then I think the opinions of some of the boys will be changed considerably."

Stiner had lost 11 lettermen from the previous season's team, and when 50 players reported for practice on September 8 it was the lowest turnout in the PCC. Part of that was due to world events.

The United States hadn't become an active participant in World War II but much of the world already had: Japan had invaded China in 1937, Germany attacked Poland in 1939 and then other countries, France and Great Britain had then taken up arms against Germany. Italy had invaded France, Egypt and Greece in 1940, and earlier in 1941 Germany had turned on its former ally, the Soviet Union.

It seemed inevitable the U.S. would be drawn into the conflict, hence the planning for Camp Adair and other facilities. The U.S. had begun shipping arms and other supplies to Great Britain in 1941, and the U.S. Army had begun drafting young men into service – including several Beavers.

Centers Galen Thomas and Bud English and guard Bob Rambo had already enlisted or been drafted, and halfback Frank Chase opted to stay at his summer job in a defense plant when his draft board informed him leaving the position would mean being called for active duty. Additionally, halfback Gene Gray was unavailable pending settlement of a possible draft deferment.

Among those on hand, Stiner was particularly keen on George Peters, a quarterback from Ventura, Calif; in the offensive scheme of the day his role was to block, and Stiner called Peters the greatest blocker he'd ever seen. Halfbacks Bob Dethman, from Hood River, and Don Durdan, from Eureka, Calif., would run the offense, and center Quentin Greenough, from San Gabriel, Calif., led a group that line coach Jim Dixon said would be better than the 1940 unit.

The 1941 season would open with a key rule change, one Stiner wasn't happy about. After the 1940 season, the football rules committee approved unlimited substitutions during college games; previously, if a player started a quarter and left the game, he could not return during that quarter.

The rule debuted when the College All-Stars met the Chicago Bears in the annual exhibition game that matched the nation's best graduated seniors against the defending National Football League champions. The game dragged on with frequent substitutions, just as Stiner had predicted would happen with the new rule; prior to the start of the college season, he advocated repealing or changing the rule.

"Do you want three-hour football games?" Stiner told one sportswriter. "If the rule stays in, that's what you'll see. There has been much criticism of college football in the past because of the tendency to drag out play – even with limited substitutions – but you haven't seen anything. True enough, the rules require that after the ball becomes dead it must be put in play again within 25 seconds, but did anyone ever see an official enforce that? It can't be enforced if substitutions are rushed in as at the All-Star game – it will be a physical impossibility."

The Beavers began their fall practice with two-a-day sessions, but Stiner cancelled the first scrimmage to avoid injuries. As the September 27 opener at Southern California neared, Oregon State got some good news regarding two players.

Guard Ken Wilson, from Klamath Falls, was reinstated by PCC Commissioner Ed Atherton. Wilson had been among several PCC athletes who had been suspended the previous year because of allegations alumni group recruiting violations. The facts of Wilson's case were reviewed, and he was the only one of the suspended athletes to earn reinstatement. Then, one week before the season opener, Gray, from Portland, was cleared to play after his draft deferment came through.

Oregon State would need all the talent it could muster, and need it fast: after the opener at USC, the Beavers would play Washington in Portland and Stanford in Corvallis. Stanford, Washington and California were rated the favorites in the PCC race, and Oregon State was heading into the season with 19 untested sophomores on its roster.

"After we play USC, Washington and Stanford on successive Saturdays," Stiner dryly observed, "We'll have plenty of experience."

NEXT: The 1941 schedule begins.

Related Videos