The 1946 Tournament of Roses Parade

Film of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena on Jan. 1, 1946 prior to the game between Alabama and USC.

Washington's "Wildcat" Wilson

Wilson carries the ball against Alabama in the 1926 Rose Bowl.

George "Wildcat" Wilson was the University of Washington's all-everything player in the early 1920s. His stellar play lifted the Huskies to prominence in the Pacific Coast Conference.

During his three years with Washington the Huskies won 28 games, lost three, were tied thrice, and went to the Rose Bowl in 1925 and 1926. He also set the school's record for career touchdowns at 37 which still stands (it was tied by Joe Steele in the late 1970s).

George "Wildcat" Wilson

Wilson was a 60-minute player and handled the ball almost every play when on offense. With it in hand the 5' 11", 185 lb. speedster was a triple threat as he was able to rush, pass or kick with equal skill. Moreover he used the stiff-arm with disturbing effectiveness when he chose to run. He was also considered a formidable linebacker.

In 1925 he was named to Grantland Rice's All-American squad alongside Red Grange and his team earned an invitation to the Rose Bowl game to face Alabama. Wilson was having a day against the Crimson Tide but was knocked out of the game late in the second quarter and didn't return to play until the final period.

With Wilson in the game, Washington gained 317 yards and scored 19 points. With him on the sideline, the Huskies could only garner 17 yards and went scoreless. In that interim, Alabama scored 20 points. That proved to be the difference as the final whistle sounded. Alabama 20 - Washington 19.

Wilson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, named to the All-Time Pacific Coast Team in 1969 and inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1991.

The Harry Gilmer Newspaper Cartoon

Between 1928 and 1975, illustrator Bob Coyne was a staple of Boston sports scene, producing more than 15,000 cartoons and caricatures for various Beantown publications. When Alabama traveled to Massachusetts in November 1946 to play Boston College, Coyne produced this piece featuring the Crimson Tide's Harry Gilmer for The Boston Post. The Eagles defeated Alabama 13-7 at Fenway Park in Boston.

Johnny Mack Brown, The Crimson Tide's Cowboy Movie Star

Johnny Mack Brown was the photogenic star of Alabama's first Rose Bowl squad. The fleet-footed halfback was dubbed the "Dothan Antelope" and he ran for two touchdowns in the contest against Washington to garner the Most Valuable Player award. The performance in Pasadena was a prelude for a long career in Hollywood.

Johnny Mack Brown

Interestingly, Brown was "discovered" while in Alabama, not during the Crimson Tide's trip to California. A group of actors filming Men of Steel in Birmingham in 1925 met Brown after a game and urged him to take a screen test. After graduating from Alabama, Brown was offered a contract with MGM for $75 a week.

Brown was first touted as a romantic foil in silent films and was featured alongside Greta Garbo, Marion Davies as well as Mary Pickford in 1929's Coquette - a role that earned the actress an Academy Award for her performance.

The zenith of his pursuit to become leading actor for a major studio came in 1930 when he starred in King Vidor's Billy the Kid but the rapid rise of Clark Gable as the main lead for MGM curtailed his career. Brown went on to work as a character actor for several other major studios but his desire for leading roles led him to work for low-budget independent studios. It was there he resurrected his career as a star of B-movie westerns.

Brown eventually starred in no less than 127 Westerns and, during the heyday of the genre during the 1940s, he was consistently among the top ten money-makers for the independent studios and never ranked outside of the top ten in Box Office popularity polls.

The 1935 Rose Bowl

The 1935 Rose Bowl that pitted Alabama against Stanford was expected to be a close game. And it was... for most of the first quarter. A pair of fumbles by the Crimson Tide stymied Alabama's offense and provided Stanford a 7-0 lead.

Then, in the second quarter, Alabama unloaded on the Indians, scoring 22 points in less than 13 minutes. This film shows two of those scoring plays; a 59-yard touchdown pass from Dixie Howell (54) to Don Hutson (14) as well as Howell's 67-yard touchdown run that broke the game open for the Crimson Tide.

Alabama won the game 29-13 and claimed the national championship.

Demoralizing the Opposition with the Second Team

Wallace Wade

During his last season in Tuscaloosa before heading off to take over the head coach position at Duke University, Wallace Wade employed an unusual tactic with his Alabama squad - he refused to start the starters. For every game of the 1930 season, the first quarter was played with the second team.

"You see, that second team was able to hold everybody scoreless the whole year," he explained years later. "We knew it would help us for an opponent to play the second team and not score and then know we were sending in the first team."

And it worked. Alabama's first team stayed on the bench for the first quarter then came in and crushed the opposing team. At the end of the season the Crimson Tide had outscored its opponents 271 to 13. They held held eight teams scoreless and only Vanderbilt and Tennessee were able to reach the end zone and both of them accomplished the feat only once.

The Crimson Tide even used it in the 1931 Rose Bowl against Washington State to successfully down the Cougars 24-0 and claim the national championship.

It wasn't exactly an original idea. Knute Rockne had previously employed the tactic with spectacular success at Notre Dame calling his second squad the "shock troops." Tulane's Clark Shaughnessy tried the gambit against LSU in 1926 but the Green Wave second team allowed the Tigers to score what proved to be the winning touchdown of the contest.

You can read more about it over at Roll Bama Roll.

The 1931 Rose Court

1931 Rose Queen Mary Lou Waddell and her court.
Myrta Olmstead, Alice Ashley, Myrna Wilson,
Fannie Arnold, Florence Dunkerley.