Heisman Trophy weekend offers reason for us at Badgers Wire to celebrate Wisconsin’s two stiff-arm trophy icons. The recent winner was Ron Dayne in 1999, but Alan Ameche came first in 1954.
As we noted in our review of the 1954 Heisman vote which lifted Ameche to college football immortality, Ameche is — for most American sports fans who are aware of him — the man who ended the first sudden-death overtime game in NFL history, the seminal 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants in fabled Yankee Stadium. A moment with Alan Ameche at the center of the action permanently changed the NFL, professional football, and sports culture in the United States. That is quite a legacy to leave behind.
Yet, while Ameche is associated with the NFL’s rise to prominence, and while his 1954 Heisman cemented his place in the history of college football, earning him a spot in the College Football Hall of Fame, “The Horse” was first and foremost a Wisconsin icon for a reason not connected to the Heisman.
To be sure, Ameche’s identity as Wisconsin’s first Heisman winner gives him a special place in UW sports history — and the broader history of the school itself — but let’s imagine a world in which Ameche had narrowly lost that 1954 Heisman vote, which was very close. Would he still be an immortal in the pantheon of great Wisconsin sports figures? Absolutely.
Here’s the simple but powerful detail of Ameche’s career which younger Badgers need to know (and remember, and then pass along to future generations of UW fans): Ameche helped Wisconsin make its first Rose Bowl AND its first bowl game of any kind.
The first college football season in which there were multiple bowl games was 1934. The Orange, Sugar and Sun joined the Rose. However, the Rose Bowl, at that time, had not yet developed the Pac-12-Big Ten tradition which marks the bowl today. The Pac-12 was then called the Pacific Coast Conference, and the Big Ten was then known as the Western Conference. (That’s why Michigan’s fight song refers to the “champions of the West,” in case you ever wondered about that.)
The Pac-12 and Big Ten relationship in the Rose Bowl didn’t begin until the 1946 season and the 1947 game between Illinois and UCLA. I mention this because in 1942, Wisconsin’s first great team of the multi-bowl era went 8-1-1 and finished third in the final Associated Press poll. If the Pac-12-Big Ten relationship had begun in 1942, Wisconsin would have played UCLA in the 1943 Rose Bowl. However, No. 2 Georgia got the invitation instead. This prevented Wisconsin from making its first Rose Bowl and its first bowl game of any kind.
Ten years later, in the 1952 season, Ameche was there to lift Wisconsin to the 1953 Rose Bowl against USC. It was the first time Wisconsin was able to make the pilgrimage to Pasadena which is treasured among Big Ten fans. That same pilgrimage will take place in a few weeks against Oregon, in preparation for the 2020 Rose Bowl.
Alan Ameche was a pioneer for Wisconsin football not just as a Heisman winner, but as a Rose Bowl participant. His imprint on football is so much more than that one touchdown in 1958 for the Colts.