Blast from the distant past: Local man played for Gophers Rose Bowl team

BleedGopher

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per the White Bear Press:

Meeting with Paul Ramseth is a bit like encountering someone from an ancient tribe, a lost civilization.

Yes, walking among us is a living remnant from the only Minnesota Gopher football teams to play in the Rose Bowl.

“We thought we’d go back every year,” said Ramseth, 75, about the early 1960s.

Instead, it’s been 57 years, about three generations, since the U of M went to a Rose Bowl, or played in any Jan. 1 game for that matter.

Ramseth, who lives on Bald Eagle Lake, joined the Gophers in 1960 on scholarship after sparkling in four sports at Redwood Falls. Freshmen were not eligible to play then, so he did not make the trip to Pasadena that season, when the Gophers won the Big Ten but lost to Washington 17-7 in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day 1961.

A year later, he was third-string quarterback on the 1961 team that placed second in the Big Ten and returned to the Rose Bowl because — things were a bit different then — the Ohio State faculty voted not to let the Buckeyes play, fearful that football was overshadowing academics.

The Gophers made the most of that second chance, beating UCLA 21-3 on New Year’s Day 1962. Ramseth’s contribution to the victory was running the “scout team” that executed UCLA’s old-fashioned single-wing offense against the Gopher defense during the weeks of preparation.

In the last minute of the Rose Bowl, coach Murray Warmath sent Ramseth and the scout team into the game to run out the clock. So he got on the field, but didn’t actually run a play.

“I’d been running the UCLA offense so long, I could barely remember our plays,” he recalls. “The guys in the huddle wanted to run the UCLA plays, but I said absolutely not, it would be disrespectful, and our coaches would be really mad. So we just let the clock run out.”

Ramseth became a starting safety and punt and kick returner his last two years. The Gophers came heartbreakingly close to another Rose Bowl his junior year. More on that later.

Still physically fit, and about 20 pounds under his football playing weight, Ramseth remains an athlete by golfing several times a week. He shot his age (75) once last summer.

https://www.presspubs.com/white_bea...cle_8f2e569e-0ed1-11e9-94dd-4fd51eed1056.html

Go Gophers!!
 

I talked to him some time ago as he is from around my hometown. He played safety and rarely had to make a tackle as the defense was so sound in those days. I kidded him that he had the best seat in the house watching the others play. Jim Cairns was a teammate from Redwood Falls but he died within twenty four hours of Murray Warmath.
 

per the White Bear Press:


Instead, it’s been 57 years, about three generations, since the U of M went to a Rose Bowl, or played in any Jan. 1 game for that matter.



Go Gophers!!

Nitpicking but that's not true. Our game against Mizzou maybe 4-5 years ago now was on Jan. 1. Obviously not a major bowl or anything but still is incorrect
 

Nitpicking but that's not true. Our game against Mizzou maybe 4-5 years ago now was on Jan. 1. Obviously not a major bowl or anything but still is incorrect

Gee whiz, I guess I was in Orlando on a different day...

Great story, though.
 




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