Woody and a Rose Bowl in the rain

PASADENA, Calif. — You know the song: “It Never Rains in Southern California — It Pours.” Written by a guy named Albert Hammond about not being able to find work in the movie business.

Could have been about the 1955 Rose Bowl game.

No question, the weather this time of year in SoCal is spectacular. For the most part, it’s blue skies. Chamber of Commerce stuff.

But as the lyrics of another song go, into each life (and region) some rain must fall — the “region” line is my own personal addition, because it was raining here on Thursday as far as the eye could see.

That was also the case more than 60 years ago for the event with the copyrighted nickname, “Grandaddy of Them All.”

The label was created by the good people around here because they believed the Rose Bowl, in a way responsible for the multitude of postseason college football matchups, was being pushed out of the headlines by lesser games.

But on that New Year’s Day, that afternoon in ’55, the Rose Bowl received attention it never wanted.

For the first time since 1934 and the last time ever — not counting some fourth-quarter heavy mist in 1996 — it rained on the Rose Bowl.

What a literal mess on the field. What a virtual stink caused by Woody Hayes.

He was a grumpy, demanding, un-merry old soul who coached Ohio State — which, interestingly enough, will play Utah on Saturday in the 2022 Rose Bowl.

In ’55 Hayes and Ohio State would beat USC, 20-7, but Woody was displeased because the Trojan band had been allowed to march at halftime on turf already soggy, thereby transforming the Buckeye attack to three yards and a clod of mud.

That was only one of the controversies for what, you should excuse the term, became a quagmire of a game.

USC shouldn’t even have played. UCLA not only was the No. 1 team in the land in the UPI poll but also the undefeated champion of the Pacific Coast Conference, from which the West Coast team in the Bowl normally would be chosen.

But the PCC had a no-repeat rule. UCLA had played (and lost to) Michigan State in the 1954 Rose Bowl. Thus USC got the call.

That game was our first formal introduction to Woody, who the late Jim Murray once said was graceless in victory, graceless in defeat. Hayes once punched Los Angeles Times photographer Art Rogers when Rogers, doing his job, aimed a camera at Hayes.

My job at the Rose Bowl, before I became a journalist, was to peddle programs. The first Rose Bowl game I worked, 1954, I ended up with $10 and, because the goal posts were made of wood and people could swarm the field, a few memorable slivers. I was in high school and thrilled.

But one year later, everything was different. Before that 1955 game, the heavens opened up around 10:30 in the morning. I was unprepared. So was everyone else.

The usual 100,000 tickets had been sold (at $15 each, if I recall), but attendance was around 89,000. As I slogged through the stadium trying to sell before the game started, a spectator stopped me and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket for 25 cents. No thanks.

I was wearing one of those high school letterman-type jackets, blue with fake leather sleeves over a required white dress shirt.

By the time I left, the shirt was blue from the jacket color leaking. I had earned $1.25. Happy New Year. Glub.