Oklahoma State University Athletics
A "Froze Bowl" Championship
October 18, 2010 | Cowboy Football
Oct. 18, 2010
Looking Back With Pat Quinn
Those Oklahoma State Cowboy footballers that participated in it called it the "Froze Bowl".
In truth it was the one-and-only Bluegrass Bowl (1958) game played in Louisville, Ky., and the nickname came from the paralyzing chill of seven-degrees above zero, a temperature reading that lasted for four days, including game day, and promoted a horrible game day environment.
In fact, the bowl committee, faced by the attendance damaging weather offered free tickets to neighboring Ft. Campbell soldiers but even with this generously "optimistic" effort the attendance guess of 7,000 fans were hard to be seen.
That Oklahoma State defeated up-and-coming Florida State, 15-6, was predicted but nobody forecasted a contest where both teams played in tennis shoes and on a converted baseball diamond.
There were plenty of OSU leaders as FSU didn't score until 1:08 left in the contest and that came on a 38-yard pass play against the Cowboy reserves.
The severity of the situation can be confirmed. All you'd have to do is ask some of the Pokes that persevered the arctic-like conditions such as quarterback Dick Soergel, halfback Duane Wood, halfback Tony Banfield, center Fred Latham, tight end Jim Wood, along with co-captains, fullback Larry Rundle and tackle Jim Howard.
All of these players, plus a host of others, contributed although many pre-game articles forecast good results for the Seminoles' unorthodox passing game.
Few thought the Poke defense and reserve players would stand up under these conditions and they couldn't have been further from correct. In fact, OSU's MVP (as voted by the chilled media in attendance) turned out to be second-string fullback Forrest Campbell, a senior industrial engineering major at O-State.
Duane Wood scored both Cowboy touchdowns, one on a 17-yard scamper and the other on a one-yard plunge. Jim Wood kicked one Cowboy conversion point while O-State bagged two points on Soergel's conversion pass to Duane Wood.
Campbell, whose nickname was, appropriately, "Frosty," rushed for 130 yards on 26 carries.
All of the offensive figures concerned didn't surpass the rock-ribbed Cowboy defense that made the 15-point lead look like a four-touchdown advantage. OSU had four interceptions in the game including an endzone theft by Duane Wood.
Three of OSU's four interceptions came in the final period and after the end-zone pick the Pokes used up half of the fourth quarter that bogged down deep in Seminole territory.
It was OSU's third win in four post-season games and was logged in the books with O-State's 1945 win over TCU in the Cotton Bowl and the 1946 Sugar Bowl victory, 33-13, as Bob Fenimore out battled St. Mary's "Squirmin Hermann" Wedemeyer.
The win in New Orleans saw Fenimore (State's single-wing tailback) overcome a below average passing game to amass 206 yards after being involved in 36 plays.
Another sign of things to come was ABC-TV's first complete network telecast of a college post-season game with Harry Wismer doing the play-by-play and Howard Cosell the game analyst.
There should have been some sort of a hardship award for Wismer and Cosell.
There was no plush press box booth available for ABC-TV's initial broadcasting twosome. Surprisingly they did their best to be light-hearted about the weather as they were on an elevated set of painting structures, leaving them to bear every freezing moment of the game.
Pat Quinn worked in the Oklahoma State Sports Information Office for 26 years, including serving as the director from 1969-1984.
