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The Oregon State College Beavers 1941 football season started with a loss to USC in late September. This was their first of two losses, and the team ended the season with a 7-2 record, finishing with a 12-7 win over the University of Oregon on November 29. The team was lead by coach Lon Stiner, as well as captains Martin Chaves, Stan Czech, Bob Dethman, Quentin Greenough, Lew Hammers, George Peters, and Norm Peters. The team received a unanimous nomination to represent the Pacific Coast Conference at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on New Year’s Day 1942, against the Duke University Blue Devils.  Celebrations ensued, highlighted by the Beavers attendance as guests of honor at a banquet held in Portland on December 3. But disaster struck on December 7 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, after which the United States immediately went to war with Japan. With great concern over a possible second bombing attack at the Rose Parade and Bowl game, the entire event was called off until Duke University proposed the game be held in their stadium in Durham, North Carolina.

Three days later, on December 19, the Beavers were aboard a train at the beginning of a transcontinental journey that would end with a Rose Bowl Championship.

During their trip, the team visited Chicago, Illinois to practice at the University of Chicago stadium; the US Capitol in Washington, D.C.; and George Washington’s Mount Vernon in Virginia. Finally, after a five-day journey, the team was greeted with a warm welcome when they arrived in North Carolina on the morning of December 24. The following evening, they were treated to a Christmas dinner at the university. The team spent the next few days exploring the university campus and preparing for the big game.

New Year’s Day arrived, bringing with it heavy gray clouds and rain. The newly sod field turned to mud, and fifty thousand spectators huddled to try to keep dry. The Blue Devils had been favored to win by 14 points, but the Beavers used the heavy downpour to their advantage, and won 20-16. Donald Durdan was named the Rose Bowl Player of the Game. Half an hour after the game concluded, the Beavers boarded a Southern Pacific passenger car and began the journey home, finally arriving in  Albany, Oregon on January 8, 1942.

Twenty-nine of the thirty-one members of the Beavers football team enlisted in World War II not long after the game was over. Many were already attending college through the ROTC program. Due to the war, Oregon State did not have a football team in 1943 and 1944.

Bob Panagis was born in San Francisco, California in 1919. He attended Belmont High School in Los Angeles and transferred to OSC in the spring of 1941 after a period of study at Los Angeles City College. While at OSC he majored in Mechanical Engineering with an aeronautical option. He was also a member of the Beaver football team during the 1941 and 1942 seasons, and he graduated in 1945 with a Bachelor of Science. He lived in California, working as a city planner, for the rest of his life, passing away in 2004 at the age of 85.