PSU Magazine Fall 1995

A New Game They bowled us over A~ part of Portland State's 50th anni,·ers<1ry celebration, PSU and Recd College (a 1960 College Bowl participant) will celebrate the origi– nal concept of the G.E. College Bowl ~cries with <1 competition before the City Club of Portland at noon Oct. 20 in the Marriott Hotel, 1401 W Front Avenue. The meeting also will be broadca ·t on radio station KOPB (91.5 FM). Thirty years ago, four PSC students and their faculty coach brought home the G.E. College Bowl trophy. t 4 a. m. , 700 well-wishers fill ed the Portland Airport. Members of the Portland State Co ll ege band struck up a march and the rally squad led chee rs as a sleepy but elated PSC team walked off the plane and into the spotlight. "It was like we'd won the Rose Bowl ," says Jim Westwood . "Like we were heroes." O n that March morning 30 years ago, amid a fervor of national and loca l acclaim, Westwood and three other students br ught a G.E. College Bowl trophy home to Portland State College. The New York Times and Time magazine covered the story of the four young men from the hinterlands who defeated the East's top contenders. ("What in the tunkit is Portland State College?" asked a bewildered Time.) Gov. Mark Hatfield proclaimed a Portland State College-G.E. College Bowl Appreciation Day, and team captain We twood addressed both h use of the Oregon Legislature. The team will be recognized aga in Oct. 20 as pa rt of PSU's 50th anni ver– sa ry year celebration when P U and Reed College recreate a Coll ege Bowl competi tion at the noon meeting of the C ity C lub of Portland . The popular G.E. Co ll ege Bowl competition pitted four-person teams from the nation's college and uni ver– siti es in grueling half-hour se sions every Sunday on live telev ision. Winning team advanced to take on a new challenger the fo llowing week. Any team winning fi ve straight contests automatica ll y reti red as a champion. P C's 1965 victory made it the second team to earn a championsh ip in the 1964-65 telev ision season and only the lSth team in seven yea rs to retire undefeated . Their victory was decisive: The team broke every five– game record in the hi story of the competition and won the fin al match by a lopsided 415-60. Today, team member Jim Westwood is a partner in the law firm of Miller, Nash, Wiene r, Hage r and Ca rlse n. Mike Smith, who Smith Memorial Center is named fo r, died in 1968 from cystic fibros is. Coach Ben Padrow, assoc iate professor of speech, died in 1986, and the whereabouts of team members Robin Freeman and Larry Smith are unknown. "It was a thrilling experience for a boy from Oreg n who'd neve r been east of Idaho ," says Westwood, who turned down law school at Harvard to go to Columbia Univer ity, based on his College Bowl taste of New York. "It changed my life." 0 "The original College Bowl contest were extremely competi– tive," says Pat Squire, director of PSU Alumni Relations. "Thi~ time the event will be of a friendlier nature, but we will be demonstrat– ing some serious points as well, like the collaborative spirit among school of higher education in the Portland area, that mental prowess, can be ju t as much fun as athletic prowess and that learning is a life-long endeavor. And it shou ld be great fun." For information on attending the event, call the P U Office of P U Alumni Relations, 725-4949; or ca ll the City Club for re erva– tions at 222-2582. 0 J. WESTWOOD The 1965 team members were (left to right) Coach Ben Padrow, Larry Smith, Mike Smith, Jim Westwood, Robin Freeman; and (back rmt') alternates Marv Foust, Al Kotz, Jim Cronin, and Jim Watt. (Not pictured are alternates Doug Hawley and Bruce Worthington.) FALL 1995 rsu 1Al)AZINE 17