Jack Hart, Star on Cal's Most Recent Rose Bowl Team, Dies at 87

Hart teammed with Joe Kapp to get the Bears to Pasadena on Jan. 1, 1959, when they lost to Iowa

Cal's Jack Hart looks for running room / Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics

Jack Hart, who scored two touchdowns in Cal’s most recent Rose Bowl game in 1959 and remained devoted to his alma mater throughout his life, died last week. He was 87.

Hart is a member of the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame, was an All-Pacific Coast Conference running back and team co-captain in 1958, and created the Glenn Seaborg Award, given to an alum who represents the university’s principles and traditions of excellence in academics, athletics, leadership and attitude.

He served as president of Pappy's Boys, composed of former players of Cal coaching legend Pappy Waldorf. He also was the executive director of the East-West Shrine Game.

"If you want to see what Cal means, look at Jack Hart," Burl Toler Jr., the current president of the Glenn Seaborg Award committee, told Cal Athletics.

Hart was co-star of the 1958 Cal team that featured All-American Joe Kapp at quarterback. Kapp, who went to play in the Canadian Football League and the NFL and was Cal’s head coach from 1982-86, died two years ago at the age of 85.

One year removed from going 1-9, the Bears were 6-1 in PCC games in 1958, including victories over USC and UCLA. To clinch the PCC title and Rose Bowl berth, they posted a 16-15 win in the Big Game in which Hart scored two touchdowns and was in on the tackle that prevented a go-ahead two-point conversion by Stanford. 

The Bears were 7-3 going into their first Rose Bowl since Waldorf led the program to three straight trips to Pasadena through the 1949 season.

Underdogs to Iowa, the Bears trailed 20-0 at halftime and lost 38-12. Hart scored touchdowns on a 1-yard run and a 17-yard pass reception from Kapp but Cal could not stop Iowa’s potent running game.

Cal hasn’t been back to the New Year’s Day bowl since then.

Hart once said, "We aren't the last Cal team to go to the Rose Bowl; just the most recent.”

Getting back to the game at this point, as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, will be an even greater challenge.

It seems Hart never fully got over the loss to Iowa.

"He refused to talk about the Rose Bowl for a long time because it wasn't a good game and he was all about competing," Hart's son, Joe, who was named after Kapp, told Cal Athletics. "It didn't matter that it was the Rose Bowl. We lost, so don't bring it up. There was this big party after the Rose Bowl and my dad refused to go to it.”

Hart finished the 1958 season as the Bears’  second-leading rusher (487 yards) behind Kapp, and their leading receiver (32 catches for 396 yards) and top scorer (58 points) for a third straight season.

Creating the Glenn Seaborg Award, named after the chancellor who served at Cal during Hart’s time as student, was indicative of his appreciation for his experience at the university, said Jeri Hart, his wife of 69 years.

"I think the thing that showed most of all how much Cal affected him was starting the Glenn Seaborg Award," she said. "That was his way of honoring Glenn, but also doing something good for Cal. I think Jack felt in his heart that there was never enough he could do to pay back Cal.”