Alvarez: ’93 lunch pail guys first to believe in the plan
October 06, 2018 | Football, Varsity Magazine
First recruiting class signed up on promises and helped build the program
UW Director of Athletics
BY BARRY ALVAREZ
UW Director of Athletics
MADISON, Wis. — Someone wondered if I would be wearing my Rose Bowl ring at this weekend's reunion of the 1993 team. I hadn't thought about it. But it's a good idea. I may wear that first one.
That's a really good group coming back. I appreciated the attitude and effort that they gave us. To a lot of them in the first recruiting class, we were selling blue sky. Or the promise of things to come.
We didn't have much else to offer them at the time. Or anything to really hang our hats on. Kids wanted to play in bowl games and we hadn't gone to a bowl in years (since 1984).
I remembered telling them that they could be a part of the process here, they could be a part of something special, they could be a part of a turnaround and people would remember them for that.
Those were some of the things we sold, and those first guys bought into our coaching and whole program. A lot of the older ones, the ones that we inherited, didn't. Many weren't around very long.
It was unbelievable what we were able to do in such a short period of time. Three weeks before the signing date, we went out and recruited a class that formed the foundation of that Rose Bowl team.
Some of them were forced to play right away. They weren't quite ready, but they had to play. We won just once that first year, but I was encouraged by the way we played in our last game.
We were a 29-point underdog to a good Michigan State team that went on to earn a share of the Big Ten title. We were 1-9 and we weren't really playing for anything but pride.
If we hadn't dropped a pass in the end zone late in the game, we would have beaten them on their home turf. It was a tough loss (14-9). But our guys went toe-to-toe with them and really competed.
I knew right then that they had bought in and we could build on that. The next year, we were still young, but we took another step. In fact, the next two years, we could have been an eight-win team.
But they still had to learn how to win and not beat themselves. The pieces started to fall into place that fourth season in 1993. But there were some emotional swings that we had to deal with.
We lost at Minnesota, a game that we should have won. We turned it over too many times. And then we came back home and played a heckuva game to beat Michigan.
But then we had the crisis in the stadium, the crowd surge. I had some of my players carrying off students that they feared might be dead. Emotionally, everybody was zapped.
That game became very secondary — and that win, as big as it was, also became very secondary — when you're talking about injuries and possible fatalities.
We had to be smart as a coaching staff. We needed to give the players some space and time to rejuvenate and recharge. I really didn't say much about the Ohio State game until late in the week.
At a Thursday night pep rally, I cut loose. I brought up our 20-16 win over Ohio State the year before and, working the crowd, I said, "They were damn lucky that the game was that close."
That Friday night, we showed our players the "Rudy" movie and we went one better. We had the real Rudy — Dan Ruettiger — speak to the team. I sold the game as "big on big."
And that's how it unfolded. They had to block a field goal to save the tie (14-14).
I'm sure a lot of the returning guys will reminisce about that game this weekend, along with our trip to Tokyo to play Michigan State and our win over UCLA in the Rose Bowl.
So many times, it can be overwhelming, particularly that first bowl game, and specifically the Rose Bowl. But we had a great plan on how we were going to go about the week and prepare.
And our guys weren't overwhelmed by anything. They just went out and played like we always played. We called them lunch pail guys and that's what they were.
We had blue collar guys who liked to play football.
Twenty-five years later, when I'm asked if I thought all of this was possible, I tell them that was the plan. We said all along that we were going to build this program on a good, solid foundation.
And once we get there, it's going to be consistent. It's not going to be a peak and valley program. That's exactly what it has proven out to be.
You hoped it would happen. Obviously, there are no guarantees. But that was our plan from the beginning. And it really hasn't changed much since then.
