If you check the lineups of the very first Rose Bowl in 1907, you will find that Brown University started a guard by the name of Wallace Wade. He would compete in the Rose Bowl five more times as a great college coach. After graduating from Brown, Wade’s first coaching opportunity came at his prep school alma mater, Fitzgerald and Clarke Prep School in Tullahoma, where in just his first year, he won seven and lost three. Then came the unforgettable F&C football season of 1920. Wade’s juggernaut went 10-0, including a 13-7 win over Bryson College. Naturally, he did not stay in Tullahoma long after that. Vanderbilt’s Dan McGugin brought him to Nashville to help coach the powerful Commodores. From Vanderbilt, Wade went to the University of Alabama as head coach and made his first return to the Rose Bowl in 1926, where he led the Crimson Tide over the University of Washington. He and Alabama were back in Pasadena again the next year, playing Stanford University to a tie. Four years later, the Crimson Tide traveled to Pasadena again and stomped Washington State, 24-0. Duke University then lured Wade away from Alabama. In 1939 Duke made its first-ever trip to the Rose Bowl. Wade’s final Rose Bowl appearance came with Duke in 1942. In 1950 Wallace Wade became the first commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and in 1959 he retired to a farm, where chances are, he had a fine rose garden.
