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USC Rose Bowl Berth Keeps 87-Year Presidential Streak Alive
This year’s 34th overall USC Rose Bowl selection comes with Barack Obama in office, ensuring the Trojans will make the Granddaddy of Them All during the tenure of 14-straight Presidents.
It all started in 1930, less than a year after Stanford graduate Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the 31st President of the United States. The Trojans won the Rose Bowl with a 47-14 romp of the Pitt Panthers.
Hoover became what appears to be the first POTUS to see USC play in person in 1933, and since then, they’ve appeared in at least one Rose Bowl during every Presidential administration.
If it wasn’t for Dwight D. Eisenhower, they would’ve won a Rose Bowl with each. The Trojans were just 0-1 with Ike in the White House, losing the 1955 Rose Bowl to Ohio State.
That couldn’t be said about FDR or George W. Bush. USC seemingly loves the youngest of namesake presidents, going a perfect 4-0 with Teddy Roosevelt’s distant cousin and appearing in a record five Rose Bowls under the second Bush.
As for Barack Obama, he’ll be the 14th-straight President to oversee a USC Rose Bowl, and it comes in the most dramatic of ways.
Not only will the game take place just 18 days before Obama leaves office, but the Trojans started the season 1-3 and were left for dead after losing their first two Pac-12 games.
The Trojans rallied and have squeezed into the Rose Bowl just in the nick of time, as they’ll take on equally red-hot Penn State. Together, the teams have combined to win their last 17 games, after being a collective 3-5 on September 24th.
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