Rose Bowl Hall of Fame
1929 Rose Bowl Game
1991 Inductee
Roy Riegels, despite being an All-America center, is best known for one of the biggest blunders in college football history. In the second quarter of the 1929 Rose Bowl Game, Riegels recovered a Georgia Tech fumble and ran the wrong direction all the way to his own end zone before turning around and being tackled on the 1-yard line. The Bears soon were forced to punt, and the kick was blocked, resulting in a safety. Eventually, that was the difference in the game, as Cal lost 8–7.
Riegels was so embarrassed he almost didn’t return for the second half. However, he showed his captain valor and came back to play a great second half, even blocking a kick. But those two points haunted him and his team until the end. Riegels became a teacher and coached football at California at the high school and junior-college levels. He was elected to the Cal Hall of Fame in 1998. Riegels died in 1993.
