It’s true, the adage about good things — sports’ most glorious streaks included. Ripken’s ended eventually, at 2,632; DiMaggio’s went 56; UCLA men’s basketball’s reached 88. Reifel’s likely goes 65.
Monday will make it 65 consecutive Rose Bowls in Pasadena for Jordan Reifel, or Jay, as he’s known to his family and friends.
A Pasadena native and San Marino High School graduate, Reifel, 73, lived his adult life as an educator and in Tacoma, Wash., cheering himself hoarse for the Washington Huskies — or, on Jan. 1, for whichever Pac-10 or Pac-12 team was representing the conference in that year’s Rose Bowl. Even if that sometimes meant rooting on rivals Washington State or Oregon.
In all likelihood, this will be Jay’s final Rose Bowl. He started to show the effects of Alzheimer’s in 2019, and he was diagnosed officially the next year, his wife, Patti, said. His health has declined since, but “yeah,” he said last week, he’s excited to experience another one.
He ed Patti and their eldest daughter Emily on a Zoom video call, weighing in with spare affirmation as they discussed their plans for Monday. His longtime pals, Dick Boushey and Larry Stevens, will be on hand to help Jay enjoy the day alongside Emily, who’s been Jay’s consistent Rose Bowl plus-one for each of the past 30 Rose Bowl games played at the Rose Bowl — we’re not counting 2021’s contest in Texas, relocated amid the weirdness of COVID-19.
What began as a father-son tradition became the world’s coolest father-daughter dance when second-grade Emily, a young ballerina who was just starting to like sports, decided she couldn’t bear the thought of Jay attending the big game alone again after his father died.
“It bothered me that he went by himself,” she said. “So I just had this moment where I was like, ‘OK, I’ll be the one that will go to the game with my dad and I’ll go every single year.’”
And she has, even though it meant flying in from New York each of the past 20 years to rendezvous with her Washingtonian parents in Southern California. Even if it meant scheduling jaw surgery in high school to prioritize the Rose Bowl over a Nutcracker performance — and classes.
Even when it meant sacrificing other holidays off as she worked herself into her current position as the director of social events at the Plaza Hotel, fitting that she’s such an expert now at what An Experience should deliver: “The hospitality industry is a little wacky because there’s no such thing as holidays,” she said. “The holidays tend to be the busiest time, so I said, ‘I’ll work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, whatever.’ But I was like, ‘You have to give me New Year’s off.”
Going forward, she said she’s not inclined to start taking on New Year’s shifts or deviating from what’s become such a longstanding Reifel tradition, even if it means she’ll have to head to the game alone: “I might go by myself once or twice,” she said. “And that’s perfectly fine.”
But to start 2024, her friends will again know to look forward to seeing the photo Emily will post on social media of her and her dad, at the game, displaying their tickets.
Bummer, that those tickets are all virtual now, no longer the physical stubs, which always “were so beautiful,” Emily said, because each year they featured fresh artwork, a keepsake befitting a classy event.
As deeply rooted in tradition as the Granddaddy of Them All still is, change has come even to the Rose Bowl. It’s no longer the home for the traditional Pac-12 vs. Big Ten showdown, swept up in the move to crown a clear national champion, whether via the old BCS system or today’s College Football Playoff – which will pit top-seeded Michigan against No. 4 Alabama in one semifinal Monday in Pasadena, while No. 2 Washington plays No. 3 Texas in the Sugar Bowl.
And, man! Man, oh man. For the Huskies to have come so close to appearing in the Rose Bowl this year, of all years, before being re-routed to New Orleans? That was heartbreaking for the Reifels, who — if you can’t tell — are big on tradition.
Emily, who coordinates weddings and can even pull strings for tea at the Plaza Hotel, is a huge fan of the pomp and circumstance that surrounds every Rose Parade and Rose Bowl, of its elegance, so unique in college football — and sports.
“The Tournament of Roses does a really good job of trying to like maintain as much tradition as they can,” she said. “Every year, it feels very grand, even the marketing behind it is; they’ve stayed really true to who they are.
“I thinking, when I was younger, that I always wanted them to have a big halftime show, but they’ve just kept traditionally to a halftime show that’s just always those two marching bands, which now I think is kind of cool because it’s timeless, the schools and school spirit.
“And that’s all disappearing so quickly in college football. And a lot of people are frustrated about it, to be honest. It’s kind of interesting because obviously this is a turning point, for us as a family – and I think it’s a turning point in college football too.”
Count Jay among football’s frustrated fans, she said. A gentle soul with infectious spontaneity, he always was ready with an encyclopedic knowledge of Rose Bowl history, and Emily said she’d never seen her father so upset as in 2002, the first time the game wasn’t the traditional Pac-12 vs. Big Ten matchup: “It was Nebraska-Miami — a big game! But my dad was just so anti the whole thing.”
There were so many big games, of course.
The Texas-USC BCS thriller in 2006, considered by many as the greatest college football game of all time. The first overtime game, in 2018, when Georgia outlasted Oklahoma 54-48 in double OT. And Purdue-Washington in 2001, so special to Emily, because her dad called that one once upon a time, at their first Rose Bowl together.
“That first game that we went to I him saying to me, ‘One day, you’re gonna grow up and you’re gonna go to college…’ and I’m like, ‘I’ll never be old enough to go to college!’ But he’s like, ‘… and the Huskies will be in the Rose Bowl and you’ll a sorority and they’re gonna win.’”
He was right. Emily was a student at Washington, double-majoring in dance and communications, and in a sorority, and the Huskies won 34-24: “It really was like what my dad sort of manifested in his mind what was gonna happen,” she said.
You might say Patti did the same, making sure Monday’s game would happen for her husband of 44 years.
“Because I really, I adore my husband, I love him,” she said. “And we’ve had a beautiful marriage, Emily knows that. And I do want to be a witness to others. This is what you do.”
And what do Jay and Emily Reifel do on Jan. 1? They go to the Rose Bowl.
“Alzheimer’s is an inevitable progression and it’s really hard,” she said. “I didn’t think I could do it, getting him here this year. But this is the 65th. And originally, I planned it when I thought the Huskies were going, but still, I’m glad we’re here… because life is very short, and everything is precious.”
Swanson is a columnist with Southern California News Group.
