.... but the sports prank that achieved the greatest notoriety, and is considered in some quarters to be the single best college prank of all time, (even 30 years after the fact), is caltech's great rose bowl hoax. few college pranks can be said to be more grandly conceived, carefully planned, flawlessly executed, and publicly dramatic.
pull up a chair, if you will, as we go back to the waning days of december 1960, during a sunny christmas break at the california institute of technology. a group of 14 students were idling away their vacation stranded at caltech's lloyd house. everyone else had gone home for the holidays, and those unfortunate lloyd-bound students has a chance to let their minds wander.
the papers were ballyhooing the pending rose bowl, pitting the washington husties against minnesota golden gophers. now, the rose bowl was, technically, caltech's home field. they played at the rose bowl all the time. except on new year's day, when two other teams always played there.
to the lloyd house group, soon to be known as the "fiendish fourteen," it seemed eminently unfair that caltech, a fine school in many regards other than football, had never played in the rose bowl on the one day of the year that it really mattered. never had and never would. the fact that the school even fields a team is a testament to the human spirit.
the fourteen decided that this year, the team would be avenged. caltech would be represented at the rose bowl. the question then became: how? pregame publicity trumpeted that nbc would broadcast the contest in "living color," a recent technological marvel put to good use in an elaborate and colorful halftime flip-card display. like good scientists, the caltech students thought: "eureka! the flip cards!"
(for those who have never been to a college football game, or, for that matter, may day in beijing, flip-card displays are giant mosaic pictures formed by huge numbers of people holding up colored cards).
the victim of choice had been minnesota, since their team and marching band would be staying at nearby, hated occidental college. but investigation determined that minnesota, designated the "visitors," would not be having card stunts.
that left washington. they were set to show up at long beach state shortly after christmas, and when they did, a member of lloyd house was waiting for them. passing himself off as a reporter for the dorsey high school student paper, the dorseygram, the youngish-looking student located washington's head cheerleader and, under the ruse of conducting an interview, quizzed him on how the card stunts were executed. the cheerleader, flattered by the attention, took great pains in explaining exactly how everything worked.
it was a complex system. each student in the card section - 2232 in washington's case - had a stack of large square colored cards. tacked to the back of each seat in the cheering section was an instruction sheet. each stunt was numbered and the instruction sheet indicated which card each student was to lift for a particular display. for example, if the instruction sheet said "3-red," that student held up a red card when the leader called for stunt three, thus adding a seuratian square of color to a huge, team-inspiring picture.
each stunt was constructed on a "master-plan" - nothing more than the picture worked out on a sheet of graph paper with numbered squares.
the fake dorseygramite noticed the master plan was kept in a satchel under the cheerleader's bed, along with the instruction sheets to be given to each member of the section.
the beauty of the caltech plan was this: there was no way that any of the 2232 members of the washington card section could know ahead of time how their one card fit into the entire mosaic. similarly, because of the size of the section, there could be no practices. the head cheerleader wouldn't see the actual picture until the section flipped up its 2232 cards. at the rose bowl. on national television.
the day of the interview, lloyd house collaborators staked out the head cheerleaders; room. while he was at dinner, they picked the room lock (a required skill for caltech undergraduates), snuck in, and removed a single instruction sheet, which was taken to a printer, who was asked to duplicate the typesetting on the sheet.
two-thousand, two hundred and thirty-two exact copies were made, at a cost of $30. but there was a hitch. the original instruction sheets were worn and grimy with use, and the new sheets looked new. a day was wasted baking the sheets in ovens, rubbing them with dirt, and soaking them in solutions to try to make them look like the old ones. but nothing worked and, with time running out, the young scientists decided to risk just substituting the new instruction sheets, hoping that since the old ones would be replaced, en masse, there would be no basis of comparison should suspicion arise.
it had been learned, during the interview, that the band would be at disneyland on new year�s eve. as soon as the buses left, the lloyders were back inside the room, making off with the master instructions.
time was of the essence. new year�s day fell on a sunday, which meant the rose bowl would be played on monday, january 2. as the lloyd house�s new year�s eve party unfolded in its lounge, the plans were spread out in the dining room, and the changes begun.
there were 15 separate washington card stunts. ironically, several of the stunts saluted science, the theme of the upcoming world�s fair in seattle. because of the time factor, it was decided to let the early stunts unfold, unmolested. (the group couldn�t resist a few technical improvements, however. a picture of a sharp-cornered erlenmeyer flask was rounded off so as to better mirror the beaker�s blunt-edged reality).
the last 12th, 13th and 14th stunts, however, were totally changed.
the redesign took hours, with partygoers wandering in to lend a hand with the changes.
finished, the group rushed back to long beach. lights were on in several of the dorm rooms, and with discovery possible at any second, a trio of lloyd housers labored for 10 agonizing minutes to pick the weary door lock. finally, success was theirs; they filled the satchel with new sheets, replaced the old master plans and made their getaway.
the next day, halftime came with washington ahead 17 to nothing. as the nbc cameras panned the washington rooting section, lloyd house picked up their subtle changes in the first 11 stunts. not surprisingly, nobody else seemed to notice.
