Al Gage, father of Mizzou Hall of Famer Justin Gage, remembers Hoosiers’ first Rose Bowl Game appearance

ALTON, Ill. (First Alert 4) - For the first time in 58 years, Indiana University is heading back to the Rose Bowl Game — a return that former Hoosier tight end Al Gage says brings back memories of the program’s only previous trip to Pasadena.

“I was part of a beginning of history. Indiana had never been to the Rose Bowl and they have only been once. In 1967 we had an opportunity and we took it,” Gage said.

On January 1, No. 1 Indiana will take on No. 9 Alabama in the Rose Bowl.

Gage, who played tight end for Indiana in the late 1960s, recalled how quickly the team turned around. After a 1–8–1 season in 1966, the Hoosiers finished 9–1 in 1967, beating rival Purdue to clinch the Big Ten title and earn a spot in the Rose Bowl to face top-ranked USC and running back O.J. Simpson.

The Gage name continued in college football: Al’s son Justin Gage is a Mizzou Hall of Famer. He spent eight years in the NFL and is now a coach at CBC.

“I started playing football for the Flyers in East St. Louis, that’s where I learned the game. It was Indiana who came after me. I fell in love with the Bloomington campus — I just thought I had died and gone to heaven, so I became a Hoosier,” Gage said.

The Hoosiers entered this season as the losingest program in college football history. They enter the playoffs as the No. 1 seed and college football’s lone undefeated team, with Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza.

Gage said the spirit that carried the 1967 team bears similarities to the energy the program is showing under head coach Curt Cignetti.

“The energy, enthusiasm, wanting to play hard, do it the right way and be intense in terms of getting the kids all focused — the parallel, it’s just there,” he said. “To go to the Rose Bowl, the granddaddy bowl of them all — to do it again this year is mind boggling,” he said.