Great Rose Bowl Hoax The Great Rose Bowl Hoax was a prank at the 1961 Rose Bowl , an annual American college football bowl game . That year , the Washington Huskies were pitted against the Minnesota Golden Gophers . At halftime , the Huskies led 17 – 0 , and their cheerleaders took the field to lead the attendees in the stands in a card stunt , a routine involving flip - cards depicting various images for the audience to raise . However , a number of students from the California Institute of Technology managed to alter the card stunt shown during the halftime break , culminating in the display of the word " CALTECH , " a common nickname for the Institute . The prank received national attention , as the game was broadcast to an estimated 30 million viewers across the United States by NBC . One author wrote , " Few college pranks can be said to be more grandly conceived , carefully planned , flawlessly executed , and publicly dramatic " than the Great Rose Bowl Hoax . Planning . The hoax was planned by a group of Caltech students , subsequently known as the " Fiendish Fourteen , " in December 1960 . Their leader was 19 - year old engineering student Lyn Hardy . They felt that their college , whose teams often played in the Rose Bowl Stadium a few miles from campus , was ignored up to and during the Rose Bowl Game . The students decided to use Washington ' s flip - card show to garner some attention . To discover the details behind the Huskies ' show , Hardy disguised himself as a reporter for a local Los Angeles high school ( Dorsey High School ) , and asked Washington ' s head cheerleader . They learned that , by changing the 2 , 232 instruction sheets , they would be able to trick unsuspecting Washington fans into holding up the incorrect signs . The students broke into the Cal State Long Beach dorm rooms where the Washington cheerleaders were staying , and removed a single instruction sheet from a bedroom . They printed copies and altered each page by hand . On New Year ' s Eve , three of the " Fiendish Fourteen " reentered the cheerleaders ' dorm building , and replaced the stack of old sheets with the new . Michael Lampton , later an astronaut ; Reg Clemens , a consultant for research - and - development company Sandia Labs ; Lon Bell , chief executive of Amerigon Inc . ; and Harry Keller , CEO of Smart Science Education Inc . were some of the helpers . Execution . At halftime on January 2 , the Washington card stunt was executed as the Caltech students had hoped . NBC cameras panned to the section raising the flip - cards as they uneventfully displayed the first eleven designs . The twelfth design modified the design of a husky into that of a beaver ( Caltech ' s mascot ) but was subtle enough that the audience did not notice . The thirteenth design , which called for the depiction of the word " Washington " in script to gradually appear from left to right ( starting with the capital " W " ) , ran backwards ( with the small letter " n " appearing first ) . Other sources say that the routine intended to spell out , " HUSKIES , " but that it had been altered to spell out " SEIKSUH . " Regardless , it was dismissed as a simple mistake . The fourteenth design , however , was an unmistakable prank . " CALTECH " was displayed in big block letters on a white background . Reaction and aftermath . Mel Allen and Chick Hearn covered the game for an NBC national telecast . The announcers and the stadium fell silent for several moments before breaking into laughter . As the Washington band marched off the field , the cheerleaders did not give the signal for the fifteenth and final image . The Huskies were unaware that the Caltech students had not altered the last design of an American flag . The game resulted in a 17 - 7 victory by the Washington Huskies , their second straight win at the Rose Bowl . Similar hoaxes . A similar hoax by Caltech at the 1984 Rose Bowl was inspired by this one . A group of students altered the scoreboard to show Caltech leading its rival , MIT , 38 to 9 . Another hoax reminiscent of the Great Rose Bowl Hoax is Yale University ' s November 2004 prank against Harvard .