Imagine living in Pittsburgh all of your life. It's January 1, 4:30 p.m. and it's cold in Pittsburgh, 30 degrees today, and it's getting dark out, the sun will set in half an hour. You sit in your living room with a sweater on and corduroy pants, Christmas gifts.
At that time on that day you tune in the Rose Bowl as you've done all of your life and you see this:
In Pasadena, where it's 1:30 p.m. and 64 degrees, the sideline players are washed in the sun.
And the USC cheerleaders are kissed by the sun.
And after you change your underwear, a few hours later when it's 23 degrees in Pittsburgh you see this:
"That's why they call it the Golden State," you say to yourself and you think, as you do every January 1 in the evening in Pittsburgh of just chucking it all and moving to southern California.
I bet more than a few guys and gals did just that. The Rose Bowl was the yearly best advertisement for the state of California. For people in the east and midwest it was the stuff of dreams. The Rose Bowl was not just a college football game, it was what life could be.
