Sports

'Ice Bowl' provided chills for Alaska college football fans

FAIRBANKS -- The lineup of New Year's Day college football games includes the Rose, Gator, Outback, Fiesta and Capital One bowls, to be followed later in the week by the Sugar, Cotton, Orange and other assorted bowls.

Nowhere on the schedule is there any mention of an Ice Bowl, though once upon a time, Fairbanks had its own New Year's Day college game, an event as odd as the Midnight Sun Game in June.

That the University of Alaska did not have a college football team to compete for Ice Bowl supremacy made little difference to the two sportswriters who dreamed up the game in late 1948.

"The idea was so far off the wall that it appealed to many male students who, at this time of year, were as bored as the instigators," wrote Neil Davis, an Ice Bowl historian and competitor.

Davis, a retired UA scientist, and the author of "College Hill Chronicles: How the University of Alaska Came of Age," said about 35 college students signed up two weeks before the first Ice Bowl game against the Ladd Flyers from Ladd Air Force Base, which was later transferred to the Army and is now Fort Wainwright.

The bowl game received international press coverage through the Associated Press.

"Credit for bringing the bowl game notion to the Far North is shared jointly by Sgt. Bernie Anderson, editors of the Ladd Field paper, and Walter Raschick Jr., former marine from St. Paul, Minn., now sports editor of the university paper," the Washington Post reported.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The prescribed footwear is the mukluk, a heavy cold weather boot favored by Eskimos," the AP said.

The first Ice Bowl ended in a 0-0 tie, as neither team could establish a ground game, a passing game or a kicking game. What they had was a cold game.

The officials called what might have been a winning touchdown back because the Ladd receiver had stepped out of bounds and there was easy proof, even without instant replay. The snow was deep, and the sidelines had been marked with coal dust. The refs found a clear footprint out of bounds at the 10-yard line, about 6 inches into the snow.

"Chills were bigger than thrills for the 500 fans who stomped the sidelines and squinted at their players through the vapor of their own breathing," the AP report in the New York Times recounted.

"The players had planned on wearing fur parkas over the regulation jerseys but discarded the idea as 'sissy' when the weather warmed up to minus 25," the AP said.

The Washington Post said the largest crowd on Jan. 1, 1949 was for the Rose Bowl, 93,000, while the Ice Bowl crowd was the smallest of the 19 bowls, which also included the Salad Bowl in Phoenix, the Cigar Bowl in Tampa and the Rice Bowl in Tokyo.

The next year, Ice Bowl II ended in a 3-0 victory for the college team when Leo Helsby kicked a field goal, the only points that the university team ever scored in an Ice Bowl.

Ice Bowl III was another 0-0 tie. It looked as if a touchdown would never be scored in an Ice Bowl, but the Ladd team scored seven touchdowns in Ice Bowl IV, the last one ever played, on their way to a 47-0 victory.

Dermot Cole can be reached at dermot(at)alaskadispatch.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DermotMCole.

Dermot Cole

Former ADN columnist Dermot Cole is a longtime reporter, editor and author.

ADVERTISEMENT