USC’s celebration was short-lived in ’64

ROGER CARLSON

Lying flat on his back and virtually helpless with future NFL Hall of

Famer Alan Page smothering him, Craig Fertig could only hear what was

happening as he and a receiver named Rod Sherman were immortalized in

USC football history that Nov. afternoon in 1964 -- 40 years ago, yet

still one of the most vivid memories in the university’s annals.

“It did, it changed my life,” said Fertig, a 62-year-old football

coach at Estancia High of his touchdown pass with 1:33 left in the game as Sherman caught it at the 3-yard line and twisted into the end

zone.

The vanquished was unbeaten, believed to be unbeatable, No.

1-ranked Notre Dame as USC pulled out a 20-17 victory before 83,840

at the Coliseum in Los Angeles.

It was the only game of the day and on a national basis virtually

everyone interested in college football viewed the game on

television.

“It was like when John Kennedy was shot. Everyone knows where they

were at that moment,” Fertig said. “People all the time tell me they

remember exactly what they were doing that day. Even the fans who

were there can tell you their seat number.”

It ended Notre Dame’s bid for a first perfect season in 15 years.

It also ended USC’s season at 7-3 when it was learned the Trojans

had not been extended an invitation to the Rose Bowl in favor of

Oregon State, which had produced an identical 3-1 record in the

Athletic Association of Western Universities.

All Oregon State needed was to have a tie in the conference voting

and with Washington, Washington State, Oregon State and Oregon

representing the northern section of the AAWU, that in itself was all

that was needed to get the nod.

A tie was an automatic decision since USC had just been to the

bowl in January of ‘63, as opposed to a 1956 appearance by Oregon

State when Iowa handled the Beavers, 35-19.

USC Coach John McKay, who used the possibility like a dangling

carrot, was well aware of the facts and his statement in the locker

room was prophetic: “You never know, strange things happen.”

It was a far different outlook than what was happening in the

winning quarters as players celebrated their staggering upset of

Notre Dame and to a player, they were convinced they would be playing

Michigan on New Year’s Day, although memories are somewhat

conflicting about the timing, some say they knew in the locker room,

others say it wasn’t known until later in the evening.

“I was one of the captains who had planned our party for after the

game,” recalled Fertig, “and Mike Garrett turned on the TV. It was

Fred Hessler, the voice of the UCLA Bruins, and he said, ‘One of the

greatest travesties of college football happened today and you’re not

going to believe what I’m going to tell you. Oregon State is going to

the Rose Bowl.’ ”

If you have ever seen air released from a balloon, that was the

collective response of the Trojans’ players, coaches and fans over

the course of the evening, all of whom had been led to believe there

was a reason the conference was waiting for a full week after the

regular season before it made its decision. In a nutshell, USC’s

greatest victory in some 76 years counted for nothing in the Rose

Bowl race.

“We were all told on Monday (leading up to the game) everyone in

the country had finished their season. We’d go to the Rose Bowl if we

beat Notre Dame,” Fertig said.

How massive was the victory? Newspapers in London, Paris, Berlin

and Amsterdam carried accounts of the game on their lead page in the

sports sections.

The Los Angeles Times, during its heyday as a true Southland

newspaper under Paul Zimmerman, carried in-depth stories by Jim

Murray, John Hall, Charlie Park, Frank Finch, Braven Dyer and Sid

Ziff. Ziff, who had dissed Fertig with some very unkind comments

after an early-season loss to Michigan State, called Fertig, “One of

the noblest Trojans of them all.”

Fertig’s dad, Henry, hugged him in the locker room and shouted,

“Oh, sweetheart, oh, you sweetheart!”

Fertig’s dad, a former Huntington Park police chief, was also the

marshal and chief of security at Newport Beach Country Club, where he

was known as “The Chief” in his retirement years.

It was a far cry from an earlier scene when Henry Fertig gave his

son the cold shoulder for three days after sweetheart accepted a

recruiting trip to South Bend. “I just wanted an airplane ride,” was

the Huntington Park High senior’s motive. Dad, after the silent

treatment, finally meandered into his son’s room, flipped on a little

music box which played “Fight On!,” and the cold war was over. Henry

Fertig relished the 20-17 victory the rest of his life. He died in

1997.

Still, except for the party, and the wild locker room scene, Craig

Fertig really didn’t have a lot of time to savor the victory.

“I had been drafted by Pittsburgh and the AFL and NFL were in a

recruiting war,” Fertig said. “When I took my shower the guy from the

Steelers was there in the doorway, watching me shower, because he was

afraid someone from the AFL would sneak in and sign me.”

Steelers quarterback coach Bobby Lane met Fertig at the airport,

but before they reached the Steelers’ camp Lane explained he had to

stop at the “Cork ‘n Bottle,” to settle an unpaid bill, and in short

time Lane had managed to get a couple of Jack Daniel’s boilermakers

into Fertig and before they left the bar a contract was signed.

But very soon after that Fertig got a call from McKay to see him

in his office, which usually wasn’t a good sign. Fertig’s first

reaction was recalling the last time he had been beckoned when he was

accused of stealing his jersey. “I was simply retiring it,” Fertig

explained recently with a wry grin.

At any rate, Fertig was met with one of those old black and white

movie scenes with McKay seated comfortably in the back of the film

room, a newspaper hiding his face with cigar smoke bubbling to the

ceiling.

“Give me an Oklahoma defense,” barked McKay. “Give me a

wide-tackle defense,” McKay followed. After a few more questions and

answers McKay got up and said as he went out the door, “Obviously you

were very well-coached in college.”

“I asked Dave Levy what it all meant and he said, ‘It sounds like

you’ve got the job,’ ” Fertig said.

Instead of believing he might kick around in the NFL for a few

seasons before looking for a high school coaching job, he was a

member of the Trojans’ coaching staff at age 22 with a wait of nearly

four decades before finding his home at Estancia High as the Eagles’

coach.

So Fertig retired from the NFL without ever taking a snap and gave

his signing bonus back with the explanation that “It wouldn’t be

right,” to a stunned Art Rooney, one of the all-time greats among NFL

owners. For years Fertig would receive a box of Havana cigars every

Christmas from Rooney with a note, “To an honest man.”

It was the beginning of a long tour of duty coaching the game, on

the pro and college level, and it evolved into a job as a radio color

analyst with Tom Kelly for the Trojans, along with a position in

administrative information services at USC, where he is still

employed three days a week.

Even today Fertig, a Newport Beach resident, muses over the

fragile intangibles of moment-to-moment action that placed him in the

position of the storied hero.

“Indeed, had [USC’s] Gary Hill intercepted that John Huarte pass

to Jack Snow in the fourth quarter [with a wide-open field in front

of Hill] and run it back for a touchdown maybe no one would have ever

remembered myself or Rod Sherman,” Fertig said.

But the Irish pass attempt wasn’t intercepted and returned for

what would have been the go-ahead touchdown, just a mere

incompletion, and the game wore down to the final dramatic moments.

Today Fertig has two years under his belt as Estancia’s football

coach, taking a hopeless situation to rising-respectability with

records of 3-6-1 and 4-6.

“We started with 26 last year and we had 72 in the program this

season,” Fertig said, “so word is getting out.”

It’s strictly a love affair situation for Fertig now. Estancia is

not a steppingstone, instead the cap of a distinguished career.

“I want to see these kids win and get to the CIF playoffs,” Fertig

said, with the anticipation of a teenager on Friday nights.

“Bill Redding’s son, Matt, is a sophomore and I promised Bill I’ll

be coaching until his son graduates. I want to stay here until we

play for the bundle.”

Coming up on Friday as USC and Notre Dame get ready for Saturday’s

duel in the Coliseum is a long-standing get-together as alumni of USC

and Notre Dame football convene at the St. Bonaventure Hotel in Los

Angeles.

The luncheon is in a cardinal and blue checkerboard format with

Fertig and Notre Dame’s Tommy Hawkins acting as co-emcees.

It’s the 20th annual luncheon since they celebrated the 20th

anniversary of that landmark duel and as the two teams prepare for

this showdown there is an ironic twist: USC, No. 1 and unbeaten,

against an Irish team spoiling for an upset.

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

He can be reached by e-mail at rogeranddorothea@msn.com.