Reusse: For love of the Gophers and the Rose Parade, never mixing the two

Denny Schulstad was 8 years old when Paul Giel completed his football career for the Gophers in 1953, yet that will not prevent him from looking firmly at an interviewer all these decades later and stating: “Paul Giel was my hero.”

Imagine the worship that young Denny could have expended if Giel’s 1953 Gophers had finished better than 4-4-1, allowing him to win the Heisman Trophy and not finish a narrow second to Notre Dame’s Johnny Lattner.

Schulstad’s father, Al, an accountant, would take Denny to a couple of games per season at Memorial Stadium. He was in high school at Roosevelt in south Minneapolis for the 1960 and ’61 seasons, when the Gophers played in back-to-back Rose Bowls — a 17-7 upset loss to Washington on Jan. 2, 1961, and a 21-3 thumping of UCLA on Jan, 1, 1962.

Did the Schulstads make it to Pasadena? “We did not,” Denny said. “But it became my goal to get there.”

Schulstad became a constant attendee for Gophers games during his years as a university student. He graduated in 1966 and has maintained that loyalty, missing only a handful of Gophers home games in 60 years.

There were a couple of those misses tied to his long status as an officer in the Air Force reserves. He served from 1966 to 2000 and retired as a brigadier general.

Schulstad was at a gathering with friends in 1968 when he met Pam Frederick, a native of the Pasadena vicinity in California, then working in the Twin Cities as a flight attendant for Northwest Orient Airlines.

“Our first date was the home opener against Southern Cal in ‘68, when O.J. Simpson came to town,” Schulstad said. “He was great, but we hung with them, losing 29-20. It was a very exciting game.”

Schulstad paused, then said: “Not as exciting as last Saturday, when we beat the Trojans. That was one of the two or three most exciting Gophers home wins I’ve seen — and that’s in three stadiums, Memorial, the Dome and the Bank.”

Denny and Pam were married after a short courtship, and she made a full conversion into a hardcore Gophers fan. Sadly, Pam was not there when the Gophers tush-pushed quarterback Max Brosmer into the end zone on fourth down in the final minute for a 24-17 victory over the Men of Troy last week.

Pam died in 2021 after twice getting the best of cancer in previous battles. The gregarious Pam had maintained numerous friends in southern California.

The Schulstads would catch up to those folks almost annually by attending the Rose Parade. Pam was so into the parade that, for her 50th birthday present, Denny bought her a place on a float so that she could wave to the masses.

“We always went to the parade, and a lot of times we would also go to the Rose Bowl game,” Denny said.

Then, in a melancholy voice, he added: “But never to see the Gophers. When I was starting at the U, the Gophers had been two straight years, and I thought, ‘We’ll be back soon enough, and I’ll be there.’

“And then it was, ‘Pam and I will be there.’”

UCLA, the only victim of the Gophers’ Rose Bowl win, moved its home games to that amazing and picturesque bowl in a Pasadena valley in 1982.

I’ve been to a few Rose Bowls (like the Schulstads, never for the Gophers). Don’t argue with me: Considering it opened in 1922, there’s never been a better stadium construction in United States history.

After a time, the Schulstads started lobbying with university athletic directors — particularly their friend Joel Maturi — to schedule a workaround to watching the Gophers to play in the Rose Bowl:

A home-and-home nonconference series with UCLA. Denny never won that one.

Schulstad had performed numerous political feats, both as a brigadier general spending time at the Pentagon and for 22 years as a Republican member of the Minneapolis City Council.

You were last Republican on the council, right Denny? “Yes, 1998 was my final year, making me the last one. Probably forever.”

The Schulstads moved to Edina shortly after his city council time ended. Pam took so many laps around Centennial Lakes’ picturesque flooded gravel pit that there’s a memorial there to her and one of her ever-present dogs.

Thanks to the Big Ten’s participation in eviscerating the Pac-12 Conference, that road game in the Rose Bowl now has appeared in the first season of the 18-team Big Ten.

One Saturday after the dramatics in beating USC in Minneapolis, the Gophers will be playing a substandard UCLA team in the Rose Bowl on Saturday.

To celebrate, Schulstad bought 12 tickets and headed to Pasadena at midweek to meet those longtime California friends — to fondly remember Pam, and presumably to watch the Gophers own the Rose Bowl turf, just as Bobby Bell and cohorts did on Jan. 1, 1962.

“You know Bobby Bell? He was at a game not long ago,” Schulstad said. “What a great player, and just as good of a person. He’s another one of my heroes.”