New Year's Day Won't Be the Same Without Bob Schloredt
Bob Schloredt cleverly ran the option and threw pinpoint passes to receivers in the flat. He was so good at this, the gritty quarterback led the Washington Huskies to a pair of stunning Rose Bowl victories and earned most valuable player honors each time--the first player to receive the award twice.
Schloredt was a first-team Associated Press All-America selection as a junior and a Heisman Trophy candidate as a senior.
He was the first Seattle male athlete to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated and countless other sporting magazines.
Yet Schloredt's biggest sporting contribution might have been this: he let people know that nothing was insurmountable.
While the Rose Bowl victories were the city's first major breakthroughs in any of the three major sports, it was the way Schloredt made them happen that was so memorable.
The determined two-way player went from carrying the football as a fullback, playing defense and punting for a bad UW team to becoming the top quarterback in the country and leading the Huskies to a resounding 44-8 victory over favored Wisconsin in Pasadena in 1960.
Twelve months later, the two-way player came back from a midseason broken collarbone and engineered a 17-7 Rose Bowl upset of No. 1-ranked Minnesota.
All along, he played quarterback and those other positions while legally blind in his left eye.
"I swiveled my head a lot," he said. "I was never lazy about checking the area where I was throwing the ball. I never felt I was doing anything different than anyone else."
On May 16, 2019, Schloredt was 79 when he died after a long illness and Seattle lost one of its most beloved and influential athletes. Other prominent sports figures who passed way over the past year were high-scoring SuperSonics center Bob Rule, unpopular Seahawks owner Ken Behring who tired to move the team to California, former Mariners radio broadcaster and Dodgers slugger Ron Fairly, UW's All-Coast football center Jim McCurdy and high-scoring Huskies basketball standout Doug Smart.
While New Year's Day turned into Schloredt's favorite holiday, the Fourth of July was a nightmare for him. It cost him the vision in that eye.
A few weeks before the annual summer celebration in 1947, a 7-year-old Schloredt and his friends in Moorcraft, Wyoming, watched as an older kid repeatedly stuffed firecrackers in a Coke bottle, put a rock on top of it and exploded it.
Schloredt wasn't far enough away--he was struck in the eye by a flying piece of glass.
His parents rushed him to the nearest hospital, 30 miles up the road in Gillette, and then to a bigger emergency room, another agonizing 100 miles away in Sheridan. Each time doctors said there was nothing they could do to save the vision in the kid's pierced eye. "They just sewed it up," Schloredt said.
Thereafter, Schloredt relied on sheer will rather than perfect eyesight to turn himself into an elite athlete who guided the Huskies to consecutive 10-1 seasons topped by those Rose Bowl victories. Bad luck wasn't going to stop him.
"I had not thought at all that I was handicapped in any shape or form," he said. "I'd make adjustments in football and baseball. I did have a hard time hitting a curveball breaking away from me, though."
At Washington, he endeared himself to Jim Owens' coaching staff as a tough, competitive player who deserved a chance to play. He spent most of his time at fullback as a sophomore, unable to win the quarterback job from Bob Hivner for a rebuilding 3-7 team.
On the eve of the 1959 season, Schloredt demonstrated an improved passing touch and won the starting QB job outright from Hivner. He led the once-beaten Huskies (they lost at USC 22-15) into the Rose Bowl for the first time in 16 years.
He was rewarded for his amazing play by being named the first-team AP All-America quarterback ahead of the likes of Don Meredith from Southern Methodist, Fran Tarkenton from Georgia and Bill Kilmer of UCLA, all future NFL players.
In Pasadena, Schloredt ran for a touchdown and threw for another as the Huskies embarrassed Wisconsin and the Big Ten Conference, and captured their first Rose Bowl in five tries. He shared game MVP honors with running back George Fleming, who likewise had a big day that included a punt return for a score.
A year later, Schloredt broke his collarbone while making a tackle as a defensive back against UCLA in the fifth game. This was gloomy front-page news across Seattle. He was ruled out for the rest of the season.
Hivner courageously returned the Huskies back to the Rose Bowl against No. 1 Minnesota as a once-beaten team (losing only to Orange Bowl-bound Navy 15-14). Yet the UW needed Schloredt on New Year's Day.
Fully recovered, Schloredt was inserted on the game's third series against the highly regarded Gophers and he ran and passed for TDs again in a much closer Rose Bowl. He received MVP honors again. He became part of Seattle sporting folklore with his heroics.
"I was just feeling lucky to get in the game," Schloredt said.
With two Rose Bowl wins, Schloredt turned his attention to pro football, but couldn't interest anyone in his talents. NFL teams decided he couldn't be a drop-back passer with his limited eyesight. He was drafted by the NFL's Chicago Bears and the AFL's Dallas Texans in late rounds and roundly ignored.
"I think they made a mistake," Owens said of Schloredt's pro football snub. "He would have continued to mature and work on his game, and he would have been a fine backup quarterback. He would have had the advantage that great quarterbacks have, and that's putting pressure on the defense at all times."
Schloredt played quarterback for the B.C. Lions for two seasons in the Canadian Football League before turning to coaching. Owens brought him back to the UW as an assistant and Schloredt later joined the WFL's Hawaii Hawaiians.
He was recognized for his Rose Bowl accomplishments almost to the day he died. In 2015, the old quarterback was invited back to Pasadena for added ceremony.
Schloredt never thought he was any different than anyone else until two instances made him consider it: he was called to fulfill a military commitment and later received a presidential award from John F. Kennedy's administration.
To enter the U.S. Army, Schloredt had to take an eye test. He informed the attending soldiers that he couldn't see out of his left eye. He was surprised by the reaction.
"They sent me to an eye specialist and he said, 'You can't be in the Army,' and that was the first time I realized I had a problem," he said. "I also got a distinguished handicap award from President Kennedy, and I didn't realize I was handicapped. Nobody talked about it."
Everyone forever talked about Bob Schloredt's Rose Bowl heroics. They were legendary. New Year's Day won't be the same without him.
Here's Bob's last interview with Mike Martin before the 2019 Rose Bowl