Hayden Fry is a legend at the University of Iowa. Kirk Ferentz has achieved a lot in the 24 years he has been on the job in Iowa City with the Hawkeyes. Howard Jones, who built USC football in the late 1920s and is the most important figure in USC football history, coached at Iowa and did really well there. Yet, none of those men won the Rose Bowl Game at Iowa.
Only one man did: Forest Evashevski.
As we continue our USC Big Ten Tour summer podcast series with Hawkeyes Wire, let’s reflect on the career of Forest Evashevski. He led Iowa to Rose Bowl wins in the 1956 and 1958 college football seasons. The 1959 Rose Bowl between Iowa and Cal is the last time Cal has played in the Granddaddy.
For a few brilliant years in the late 1950s, Iowa was a legitimate national power in college football. The program fell on hard times in the 1960s and 1970s before Hayden Fry resurrected the program in the early 1980s, but Evashevski showed that Iowa football could win in Pasadena on January 1.
Kirk Ferentz coached in the 2016 Rose Bowl and lost to Stanford. It would be hugely special and transformative if Iowa could ever win another Rose Bowl.
Here’s our show on Forest Evashevski with Hawkeyes Wire editor Josh Helmer:
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