14A • 50PLUs • JaNuary 2013

By Lee HamiltonAs we move deeper into a new

year, the question for Congress is this: Can members of the House and Senate do something to make the public feel more positive about Con-gress’s competence, or did 2012 end on the familiar note of Americans taking an unrelievedly dim view of Congress’ job performance?

According to data from a pub-lic opinion survey sponsored by the Center on Congress at Indiana Uni-versity, “there’s a quite decided, lop-sided disapproval of Congress,” said Edward G. Carmines, the Warner O. Chapman Professor and Rudy Pro-fessor of political science at Indiana University in Bloomington. “In our survey, it was 91 percent who dis-approve and only nine percent who approve.

“This is an old story about the modern Congress, but it’s one that bears repeating,” said Carmines. “In almost all areas, the electorate finds Congress quite wanting. We asked them if they think Congress deals with key issues facing the country; if it keeps excessive partisanship in check; if it conducts the business of

the country in a careful and deliber-ate way; if it holds members to high standards of ethical conduct; and if it controls the influence of special in-terests.

“In each of these areas, the pub-lic rates Congress quite low. We asked them to grade Congress be-tween A and F, and in almost every one of these instances, the grade is in the D range.”

Carmines also said the public does understand that Congress “has a tough job.” Those surveyed rec-ognize “there’s a wide diversity of opinion on most issues that come be-fore Congress. But they don’t think Congress works hard enough to re-solve these differences.”

Examining the relationship be-tween citizens and Congress — how people learn about, interact with and evaluate the institution and its mem-bers — has been an important focus for the Center on Congress since its founding in 1999.

The Center regularly conducts public opinion polls to gauge if Americans feel Congress is relevant to their lives and is living up to the framers’ expectation that it should be the responsive “people’s branch” of the federal government. Overseeing this survey work is Professor Car-mines, who is also the Center’s Di-rector of Research.

The 2012 findings were based on a nationwide survey of 1,000 people completed in September and October by the Internet polling firm YouGov Polimetrix.

Below, Carmines offers his thoughts on other findings of the 2012 survey:

INCIvILITY: “We asked several ques-tions about incivility in Congress, and the news here is not good. Peo-ple see incivility as a big problem, they think it’s gotten worse over the last several years, and they think it will get worse in the future, instead of getting better.” Who’s to blame? “They don’t believe voters contribute to this. They believe the members, themselves, party leaders, the media and political campaigns exacerbate incivility.”

INFLUENCE: “The survey asked, ‘What do you think is the main thing that influences what your members of Congress do in office?’ The highest, 49 percent, said ‘special interests.’ Thirty-six percent said members are mainly influenced by their person-al self-interest. Far below that, nine percent said ‘the interest of the peo-ple in their state or district’ and five percent ‘the interest of the country as a whole.’ To the question, ‘Do mem-bers of Congress care about what people like you think?’ one percent said ‘most of the time’ and 31 percent said ‘sometimes.’ A whopping 67 percent said, ‘No, not very often.’”

CITIzENshIP: “Not only do those surveyed hold Congress in low re-gard, but also, when we asked them to evaluate their own performance as citizens — do they follow what’s going on in Congress, do they con-tact members on issues that concern them, do they vote in presidential and congressional elections — they also give the public pretty low marks. We haven’t seen this in some of the earli-er surveys we’ve done; those showed

that average citizens felt they didn’t have much responsibility for what went on in Congress.”

COMMUNICATION: “There’s a grow-ing recognition of the importance of social media. People believe it’s important now for members of Con-gress to develop a good web site, to use online questions and surveys, to participate in Facebook and Twitter as well as to have regular e-mail con-tact with their constituents. It’s not that they downplay the traditional — town hall meetings, mailings and so forth — but added to this is what they see as an obligation now that mem-bers of Congress be highly involved in social media and other online out-reach.”

IMPACT: “Our survey found that people continue to see Congress as a very relevant and highly consequen-tial institution, one with a lot of ef-fect on their daily lives. They believe that Congress and the President in almost all areas — whether you’re talking about the budget, setting the agenda, declaring war or anything, really, of national importance — that it’s the Congress AND the President that ought to share responsibility. So, Congress is quite relevant to ordinary voters. But they also believe Con-gress is a dysfunctional institution.”

The Center on Congress is sup-ported in part by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research at IU Bloomington. For more information about the Center, go to www.cen-teroncongress.org.

As Congress plods along, it’s public standing is very shaky

Join O.A.S.I.S. at the Waukesha Public Library on Tuesday, January 8th from 11:00-noon, advisors will present and lead a general discus-sion on the strategies that are avail-able to help maintain control of your life today and in the future.

The presentation is sponsored by the non-profit group, O.A.S.I.S.,

Older Adults and Senior Information Series. The group has assembled a series of topics presented the first Tuesday of each month addressing concerns of older adults and seniors. All presentations are free to seniors and their adult children. Light re-freshments will be served.

“The older adult and senior in-

formation series team will work to empower and prepare older adults and adult children of aging parents by providing information, education and resources to help them success-fully manage issues and concerns that arise through the natural aging process.” To learn more, contact Roger at (414) 588-7896.

O.A.S.I.S. senior forum to present: Is your financial life structured properly?

20A • 50PLUs • JaNuary 2013

ROse BOWL continued on page 21A

By Jack pearsonIn geological terms, 50 years is

little more than the blink of an eye. Even for we ordinary mortals, that time span can seem to fly by. So it seems almost like yesterday that one of the most famous college football games of all time was played, the January 1, 1963 Rose Bowl.

The game was unique in more than one respect. It pitted the Uni-versity of Southern California (USC) against the University of Wisconsin, the Number 1 and Num-ber 2 ranked teams in the country. It was the first time in the history of any bowl game, that such a pairing, the two top ranked teams in Ameri-ca, had occurred.

During the game, the USC Tro-jans raced to an early lead, com-pletely dominating the game. Early in the fourth quarter, they had an overwhelming 42-14 lead. It was a rout, and the fans were laughing at the ineptitude of the “yokels” from the Midwest. Many were begin-ning to get up from their seats and leave the game. Then, everything changed. The Badgers mounted a monumental comeback, scoring 23 straight points in less than a quar-ter to nearly steal the game. It was a whirlwind passing display as Bad-ger quarterback Ron Vander Kelen threw to several receivers, primarily big All American end Pat Richter. This to had the Trojan players rock-ing on their heels, gasping for air.

The final score, USC 42, Wis-consin 37, proclaims for all time that USC won the game. But strangely enough, even in the loss, the Wis-consin team earned the admiration and respect of the entire nation. Al-though it is a half century later and so much has occurred since that time, I still can close my eyes and visualize many of the key plays as if I were watching the game now.

Vander Kelen was the greatest quarterback in the country that day. The previous season had been his one and only as a starting quarter-back for the Badgers. The California writers and TV and radio commenta-tors didn’t think much of him; didn’t think much of the entire Badger

team. One story said that Wisconsin wasn’t good enough to finish as high as sixth in the PAC conference. But in the ‘63 Rose Bowl, it was Vandy who made them all eat their words. He passed for 401 yards on 33 com-pletions, both the most ever for the Rose Bowl, and the most in history for a Wisconsin quarterback.

Since the Badgers began inter-collegiate football in 1889, there had not been one Wisconsin quar-terback that had ever thrown for as many as 300 yards in any kind of a game. Vandy’s favorite receiver, Pat Richter, was right up there with him in the record breaking department. Big Pat, an All-American for two seasons, hauled in 11 passes for 163 yards, the latter a Rose Bowl record and the second highest receiving to-tal ever for a Wisconsin player. The record, 170 yards, was also held by Richter, in a regular season game the year before.

USC and Wisconsin played three common foes, Notre Dame, Iowa and Illinois. The Trojans han-dled the Irish with comparative ease, beating them 25-0, while Wisconsin had their hands full with them be-fore coming out on top 17-8. But USC struggled with Iowa, winning only 7-0, while Wisconsin trampled them 42-12; and the Trojans beat Illinois only by 12, winning 28-16, while Wisconsin’s margin over the Illini was 29 in a 35-6 pasting.

There were only eight major bowl games in 1963, as opposed to more than 30 today. The bowl with the most prestige then, as it had been for many years, was the oldest of the bunch, the Rose Bowl. Other top clashes in bowls that year were in the Orange, where Alabama lev-eled Oklahoma, 17-0; in the Cotton, where LSU shut out Texas 13-0; and in the Sugar, where Mississip-pi topped Arkansas, 17-14. Oth-er bowls included the Liberty, the Blue Bonnet and the Gator. The fi-nal rankings at the end of the season had Mississippi in third after USC and Wisconsin, Texas 4th, Oklaho-ma 5th, Arkansas 6th, LSU 7th, Al-abama 8th, Penn State 9th and Min-nesota 10th. That was before Penn

State joined the Big Ten, by the way.That pairing of the nation’s No.

1 and No. 2 ranked teams was not only the first ever for a bowl game, it was highly unusual for even a reg-ular season game. Up until that time, this had occurred only five times previously, the last in 1946 in the great game between Army and Notre Dame that ended in a 0-0 tie.

The ranking system in college sports is often difficult to compre-hend and always open to debate. For example, prior to that ’46 game, Army was ranked No. 1 in the coun-try, and Notre Dame No. 2. They tied, and then both remained un-beaten for the rest of the year. Yet, at the end, it was Notre Dame that had the No. 1 rank and was named as National Champion, and Army

was dropped to No. 2. What hap-pened was that after their fight to a tie, Notre Dame won two games by large margins, while Army had clos-er scores, including a hard fought 21-18 win over a Navy team that had won only one game previously. In college football rankings, bigger score differentials result in higher rankings, which is why teams such as Alabama and Ohio State often pile up scores unnecessarily when already four or five touchdowns ahead. Something else about the rankings before that ’63 Rose Bowl; even though USC was ranked No. 1 and UW No. 2, the Badgers were the team that had been listed by the handicappers as a three point favor-ite. How a second ranked team can

A golden remembrance, The epic ’ 63 Rose Bowl

The official program cover for the 1963 Rose Bowl. Notice the price down in the corner, only $1.

JaNuary 2013 • 50PLUs • 21AROse BOWL continued from page 20Abe favored over a number one team is one of the mysteries of collegiate football.

In truth, however, the ‘62 Wis-consin team did have a tougher schedule than did Southern Cal. On Nov. 10, the Badgers took on North-western, which at the time was un-beaten and itself then ranked No. 1. The Badgers walloped the Wildcats, 37-6. Wisconsin also played Minne-sota on Nov. 24, when the Gophers were ranked number 5 in the coun-try, and beat them, too, 14-9. The Badgers were behind until a touch-down by Ralph Kurek, as I recall, with only seconds left in the game. Back in those days, Wisconsin and Minnesota always played one anoth-er in the season’s finale, such as with Michigan and Ohio State, Army and Navy and Yale and Harvard. It’s the oldest Division I football rival-ry in the country, and yet the pow-ers-that-be stopped it. Of course, back then, all home games at Camp Randall started at 1 p.m., which is what the majority of fans would still like. Today, the big wheelers have also decreed that the Big Ten bring Maryland and Rutgers into its mem-bership so the Conference “can have a presence on the east coast.” Yuck. Perhaps they should invite UCLA into the Big Ten so it can have a presence on the west coast, and maybe Oxford, too, so it can have a presence in Europe.

I digress. Let’s get back to the ’63 Rose Bowl.

Led by Richter and Vander Kel-en, the Badgers finished the regular 1962 season with an 8 win, 1 loss record, the best in Wisconsin foot-ball history since the undefeated 1912 team. The 1942 team had an 8-1-1 mark, but since ties count as a half game won and a half game lost, the winning percentage in 1942 was .850, and the mark in 1963 was .889.

If you had studied the statistics after the game, you’d have shaken your head at the fact that the Bad-gers hadn’t won. Wisconsin out-gained the Trojans 486 to 367, by 419 to 253 in the air, had 32 first downs to only 15 for USC, didn’t lose a fumble as did the Trojans, and were penalized only seven times for 77 yards to 12 and 93 for USC.

As noted the next day by Mil-waukee Journal Sports Editor Ol-iver Kuechle, “Wisconsin lost an astonishing football game in South-ern California yesterday. The score was 42-37, astonishing. So Wiscon-sin’s drought in the New Year’s Day bowl games continues, but the third of those lickings will be something everybody in the crowd of 98,698 in the stands and the millions more around the country before their tele-vision sets will never forget. Wis-consin had the ball at midfield as the game ended; another minute and who knows what would have hap-pened?”

In the ’63 NFL Draft, Richter was a first round selection of both the Washington Redskins and the rival AFL Denver team. He chose the Redskins, and played with them for eight years. Vander Kelen and all purpose back Gary Kroner were picked by the New York Titans of the AFL, but Vandy ended up with the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL, and Kroner with the Denver Bron-cos of the AFL. Badgers’ center Ken Bowman was a junior in ‘62 and played one more year at Wisconsin before moving into pro ball, for sev-eral years with the Green Bay Pack-ers. A fifth Badger, Ralph Kurek, was drafted by the Chicago Bears and played with them for six years.

Back in those days if you want-ed to see the Badgers play, you had to buy a ticket and go to a game in person. Only two of the regular sea-son games in ‘62 were on TV, the Ohio State game in Columbus and the homecoming game at Camp Randall. Attendance was far less that it is today as well, averaging only 55,887 in 1962 as opposed to the more than 80,000 average today.

Wisconsin head coach Milt Bruhn went on to lead the Badgers for four more years before retiring in 1966 with a 52-45-6 record. He was succeeded by crowd favor-ite and former Badger quarterback Johnny Coatta, who proceeded to put together the worst record ever in Wisconsin football history, winning only three of thirty games.

The 1963 loss in the Rose Bowl was particularly galling to Wiscon-sin fans as it was the third straight for the Badgers in the Pasadena bowl. It took the Badgers more than 30 years to even the board, with a 21-16 win over UCLA in 1994 and 38-31 in 1997, and a 17-9 win over Stanford in 1998.

Years after that ’63 Rose Bowl game, I was in Madison doing an in-terview with Richter, who had just been named as UW’s new athletic director. “I played in so many foot-ball games” in high school, during

my four years with the Badgers, and then so many in pro ball. But the ‘63 Rose Bowl is the one that I always seem to recall, and correspondingly, the one I’m always asked about.” He shook his head and smiled. “Just a minute or two, that’s all. If we had just a little bit more time, we’d have scored again and won the game. We just ran out of time.”

I agree with Richter. If they had just another few moments there at the end of the game, the Badgers would have pulled it out. But on the other hand, maybe the Wisconsin team should have played better in the more than three quarters before getting going? This is one of those would-a, could-a, should-a mo-ments. In a way, it’s probably better that it worked out the way that it did. The game has become immortal-ized. We still argue and debate about it, still write about it. We don’t do any of that for any of the three Rose Bowl games the Badgers won. What single event during World War II do we still read and think about, that Hollywood still makes movies about? It’s Pearl Harbor, right? And Pearl Harbor was actually a monu-mental, though temporary, defeat.

Life is funny, a wise old monk sitting atop a mountain once mused.

The Wisconsin Badgers team shot. That’s Pat Richter in the front row Number 88, and Ron Vander Kelen is in the second row, far right, Number 15.

JaNuary 2013 • 50PLUs • 23A

photos by Margaret pearsonWonderful food, music, dance and handcrafted artifacts created by cultures from all over the world, and they were all under one roof. Here are a few of the thousands of people who enjoyed the gala three-day event at the Wisconsin Exposition Center at State Fair Park.

The Annual Holiday Folk Fair International

Linda Frank of Shorewood, and Ted Dzizdulewicz of Franklin.

Jim Flasch of appleton, Beth Brandt of Hartland and Nancy Flasch of appleton.

Wayne and Mary Jo Bellinger of Milwaukee.

Mary garvens of West allis and Bill garvens of Elkhorn.

pat Baka and Wendy Tribbanold of Shorewood and Mary alice Eschweiler of Hartland.

Noocharin graf, all the way from Thailand, and Zanie rozkalns, also from far away in Latvia.

Candyce Manley of Milwaukee and Don Moloney of Waukesha.

January 2013 • 50plus • 19B

January 2013 • 50plus • 19B