University of Iowa reserve halfback Mike Hagler eludes Oregon State’s Earnel Durden to score the second touchdown of the 1957 Rose Bowl, giving the Hawkeyes a 14-0 lead. Iowa won the game 35-19. Photos courtesy of Quad-City Times
Nov/Dec 2026 (Volume 18, Issue 6)
By Don Doxsie
To the end of his days, Kenny Ploen never forgot the feeling he experienced in Pasadena, Calif., back on Jan. 1, 1957.
Even though there were 97,126 people in the stands at the Rose Bowl that day, Ploen said he felt as though he was a 10-year-old back home in Clinton playing sandlot games with his pals.
“The emotions, they’re hard to explain …’’ he said. “It was really like being a little kid on Christmas morning.’’
It was an emotion undoubtedly shared by a large portion of the population back home in Iowa. Davenport Democrat sports editor John O’Donnell wrote that it was a day “Iowans have been dreaming about for many, many years.
“Many,’’ he added, “still think it is a dream.’’
It was the very first time a University of Iowa football team ever played in a bowl game.
It has become pretty much an annual thing now. The Hawkeyes play in a bowl game nearly every year. Iowa has appeared in 38 bowl games through the years, 22 of those under current head coach Kirk Ferentz and 14 under his predecessor, Hayden Fry.
A team photo of the 1956 Hawkeyes, the first Iowa team to play in a bowl game and to win the Rose Bowl.
But in 1956, it was a new and enthralling experience.
There were only seven bowl games in existence at that time and the rules stipulated that only the Big Ten’s regular-season champion could play in the postseason. The Big Ten, which had adopted that name just three years earlier, hatched an agreement in 1947 that called for its champion to play the winner of the Pacific Coast Conference every year in the Rose Bowl.
In the first 10 years of the deal, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Northwestern and Wisconsin all made the trip to Pasadena. In 1956, it was Iowa’s turn.
The Hawkeyes were entering their fifth season under head coach Forest Evashevski, who had a John Wayne-esque tough-guy appearance and a personality to match. He had survived a high school injury that left him in a coma for five days to become a star player at the college level, serving as the blocking back for Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon at Michigan. Although he was 38 in 1956, he still was a strapping 210-pound former judo instructor who appeared to be every bit as physically fit as his players.
He wasn’t necessarily loved by those players. All-American tackle Alex Karras openly professed to hate Evashevski and others admitted they didn’t have much of a relationship with him. Tackle Dick “Sleepy’’ Klein said he didn’t think Evashevski said 25 words to him in his career.
“But love him or hate him, you’d play for him,’’ fullback John Nocera added.
Since taking over in 1952, Evashevski’s teams had shown occasional promise but the Hawkeyes were only 15-19-2 in those first four seasons.
The expectations for 1956 were lukewarm at best. The Hawkeyes lost seven starters from the previous year and had switched to a new Wing-T offense that required a quarterback who was a deft ball handler capable of making split-second decisions. Evashevski felt he had the perfect QB in Ploen, a decent passer and elusive ballcarrier who had a knack for exploiting flaws in opposing defenses.
The defense figured to be stout. Players still generally played both offense and defense in that era and many of the Hawkeyes’ regulars—including Karras, end Frank Gilliam and 25-year-old Army veteran Don Suchy—were decidedly better on the defensive side of the ball. Ploen, in addition to being a gifted QB, also was a hard-hitting safety.
The Hawkeyes were not ranked in the AP preseason poll as they had been in a few previous seasons, but they won their first five games. After hammering Big Ten doormat Indiana 27-0 in their opener, they debuted in the rankings at No. 20.
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