Today's Tidbit... Gamesmanship, the Big Ten, and the Rose Bowl

Fans today recall the Big Ten, Pac-8/10/12, and Rose Bowl partnership as seventy-plus years of marital bliss, interrupted near the end by outsiders sticking their noses into a place they did not belong. But the relationship was strained at times when one or another of the partners said, "It's not you. It's me that's the problem."

One of those times came in 1960 when both partners were going through some things. Big Ten and Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) teams played one another in Pasadena from 1947 through 1959, at which point the PCC dissolved amid player payment scandals at multiple schools. Replaced by the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU), which included only Washington, Cal, Stanford, UCLA, and USC, the AAWU champ earned the West Coast slot for the 1960 Rose Bowl game.