Twelve years after the Tournament of Roses was born in Pasadena, Ca., in 1890, event organizers decided to host a football match as a part of the festivities. On New Year's Day 1902, the University of Michigan defeated Stanford 49-0 in the ""Tournament of East-West Game."" The match was so lopsided, however, that the Cardinal of Stanford quit after just three quarters.
The game was ultimately seen as a failure, and no football was played as part of the tournament for the next 16 years. In its place, the event organizers held ostrich and chariot races, among other activities.
In 1916, the Rose Bowl Game was reborn, and since Washington beat Brown that Jan. 1, the game has been an uninterrupted, annual event. In 1923 the Tournament of Roses completed the Rose Bowl Stadium to stand as the permanent home of the annual football match.
Only once since then has the game been hosted in a venue other than the Rose Bowl Stadium. In 1942, only a few weeks following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, civilian and military leaders alike feared subsequent attacks, with West Coast targets the most at risk.
The game was originally to be cancelled until Duke University stepped in and invited the game to be held in Durham, N.C., on the opposite side of the country. Oregon State crashed the Blue Devils party, though, downing Duke 20-16 in the only Rose Bowl game ever played outside of Pasadena.
1947 welcomed the most recent addition to the current Rose Bowl format. In that season, the Big Nine Conference and the Pacific Coast Conference (today the Big Ten and the Pac-10) signed an agreement to become the permanent opponents in the annual contest.
The University of Southern California has both appeared in the most Rose Bowl games (33) and has also won the most (20). The University of Michigan is second in both categories (20, 8).
Wisconsin's personal Rose Bowl history began Jan. 1, 1953 when the Badgers fell to USC in a defensive showdown, 7-0. Wisconsin again found themselves in the game in 1960 but didn't fare much better, losing to Washington 44-8. In 1963, the Badgers finally made their first legitimate effort in the contest, when USC just barely edged out the men in cardinal 42-37.
It would be 31 seasons before Donna Shalala, Pat Richter and Barry Alvarez finally brought the roses back to Wisconsin with a 21-16 victory over the hometown UCLA Bruins.
Following the 1998 season, running back Ron Dayne led the Badgers to their second Rose Bowl title, defeating UCLA once again on Jan. 1, 1999, despite being label by analyst Craig James as the worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl. After the 38-31 Wisconsin win, then head coach Barry Alvarez joked, ""Well, I know we're at least the second worst.""
The next season, Wisconsin became the first Big Ten team ever to win back-to-back Rose Bowl titles by defeating Stanford 17-9 in the 2000 game.
Now, with head coach Bret Bielema at the helm and debatably the country's best rushing attack on the field, the 2010 Wisconsin Badgers will have the chance to rewrite the already packed history books when they take on TCU Jan. 1 in the 97th Rose Bowl game.
