August 28, 2011 : Caletch Pranks Rose Bowl

The Great Rose Bowl Hoax was a prank at the 1961 Rose Bowl, an annual American college football bowl game. That year, the Washington Huskies were pitted against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. At halftime, the Huskies led 17 to 0, and their cheerleaders took the field to lead the attendees in the stands in a card stunt, a routine involving flip-cards depicting various images for the audience to raise. However, a number of students from the California Institute of Technology managed to alter the card stunt shown during the halftime break, culminating in the display of the word "CALTECH," a common nickname for the Institute.

The prank received national attention, as the game was broadcast to an estimated 30 million viewers across the United States by NBC. One author wrote, "Few college pranks can be said to be more grandly conceived, carefully planned, flawlessly executed, and publicly dramatic" than the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.

The hoax was planned by a group of Caltech students, subsequently known as the "Fiendish Fourteen," in December 1960. Their leader was 19-year old engineering student Lyn Hardy. They felt that their college, whose teams often played in Rose Bowl Stadium a few miles from campus, was ignored up to and during the Rose Bowl Game. The students decided to use Washington's flip-card show to garner some attention.

At halftime on January 2, the Washington card stunt was executed as the Caltech students had hoped. NBC cameras panned to the section raising the flip-cards as they uneventfully displayed the first eleven designs.

The twelfth design modified the design of a husky into that of a beaver (Caltech's mascot) but was subtle enough that the audience did not notice.

The thirteenth design, which called for the depiction of the word "Washington" in script to gradually appear from left to right (starting with the capital "W"), ran backwards (with the small letter "n" appearing first). Other sources say that the routine intended to spell out, "HUSKIES," but that it had been altered to spell out "SEIKSUH." Regardless, it was dismissed as a simple mistake.

The fourteenth design, however, was an unmistakable prank. "CALTECH" was displayed in big block letters on a white background.

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