Great Rose Bowl Hoax

The card stunt at the 1961 Rose Bowl as altered by California Institute of Technology students
The card stunt in black and white

The Great Rose Bowl Hoax was a prank at the 1961 Rose Bowl, an annual American college football bowl game. That year, the Washington Huskies were pitted against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. At halftime, the Huskies led 17–0, and their cheerleaders took the field to lead the spectators in the stands in a card stunt, a routine involving flip-cards depicting various images for the audience to raise. However, a number of students from the California Institute of Technology managed to alter the card stunt shown during the halftime break, by making the Washington fans inadvertently spell out CALTECH.

The prank has been described as the "greatest collegiate prank of all time"[1] and received national attention, as the game was broadcast to an estimated 30 million viewers across the United States by NBC.[2] One author wrote, "Few college pranks can be said to be more grandly conceived, carefully planned, flawlessly executed, and publicly dramatic" than the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference LAT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ The Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961. Legends of Caltech. Alumni Association, California Institute of Technology, 1982. Accessed 12 March 2006.
  3. ^ Steinberg, Neil. If At All Possible Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks. St. Martin's Press, 1992.