Rose Bowl Hall of Fame
1922 Rose Bowl Game
2017 Inductee
Dr. Charles West was the first black quarterback to play in the Rose Bowl Game. On January 1, 1922, his Washington & Jefferson Presidents met the University of California Golden Bears in the final Rose Bowl Game played at Tournament Park in Pasadena. (The next year, the game moved to the newly built Rose Bowl Stadium.) West was one of only 17 W&J players that traveled to Pasadena for the game—11 of them played the entire 60 minutes. The Presidents, heavy underdogs, battled Cal to a 0–0 tie, the only scoreless tie in Rose Bowl Game history.
West was more than a football player. He won the National Collegiate Pentathlon at the Penn Relays in 1922 and 1923, and was an alternate on the 1924 U.S. Olympic track team. He went on to Howard University Medical School and maintained a general medical practice in Alexandria, Va., for more than 50 years. Dr. West died in 1979.
