Jan 01, 2025
College bowls have changed, with the Rose Bowl now part of the FBS playoffs.More than 50 years ago, when the Pac-8 champ played the Big Ten champ, a Senior High School graduate was part of two Stanford Rose Bowl wins.Montana Football Hall of Famer Pete Lazetich also played in the NFL.He helped the Senior High School basketball team win the state championship in 1968.A few years later, before he made it to the NFL, he played in two Rose Bowls for Stanford in 1971 and 1972.Stanford's 27-17 upset victory in the 1971 Rose Bowl kept Ohio State from winning the national championship.Well, we won, Lazetich said. It was a great. A great event and a great feeling. And we had a lot of fun.Lazetich says Ohio State held two or three practices a day in the week leading up to the Rose Bowl, and Coach Woody Hayes was all business.Stanford head coach John Ralston put the team through the tougher practices before arriving in Pasadena.Coach Ralston just pretty much turned us loose, Lazetich said. We went to Disneyland, and we went to SeaWorld, and we went to MGM and went to the studios. Every side trip they had, he said, hey, go for it. So we had a great time and we worked hard.Stanford was 8-3 in the Pac-8. Ohio State was 9-0 in the Big 10, and Lazetich says Hayes really wanted to win this game.He thought we're a bunch of hippies, Lazetich said. And we won. It was a big upset, and it was I think uplifting for the whole west coast and probably the whole nation.Lazetichs roommate at the Delta Tau Delta House was quarterback Jim Plunkett, the MVP of the game.Plunkett celebrated winning the Heisman Trophy award with his teammates. And there were other big events for Lazetich and Plunkett.We were involved in both weddings, Lazetich said. He was in ours. I was in his. All of our friends and our fraternity brothers and teammates, we had a pretty close bunch. So everybody got together for the big occasions.Lazetich went on to play for the San Diego Chargers and the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL, but none of that tops his sports memories.Number one for Lazetich is hitting the game winning shot in overtime as Senior beat West for the state basketball championship."The Rose Bowls are the numbers two and three," Lazetich said. "The number one game of all time, we played in the state basketball tournament. 1968, we played West High. Of all the sporting events that I've been in all my life, that was the greatest victory. The state championship game in Bozeman and we upset our crosstown rival."That spirit that carries you farther than you can possibly physically go and that's the heart of the brother that we were blessed to grow up with, said Karen Moses, Petes younger sister.Moses, says that spirit also helped her brother as a student-athlete.Pete and Karens dad, Bill Lazetich, was the head coach of the Senior basketball team and an assistant for the football team.Bill and his brother Milan each played in the NFL and were inducted into the Montana Football Hall of Fame, along with Pete, in 2016.We knew how big it was just to go to Stanford, Moses said. My mom cried when he got into Stanford. All she cared about, the football was great, but she just wanted him to get that degree.Memories still fresh, especially now during bowl season.It was a lifetime experience, Moses said.It was special, Lazetich said. We had a great time. We had a blast.Pete and his Stanford teammates went back to the Rose Bowl on New Years Day in 1972, defeating Michigan, 13-12.
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