Rose Bowl Roots
On Jan. 1, 1968, the Indiana Hoosiers were charging down the field in the second quarter against the Southern California Trojans on a sunny afternoon in Pasadena. Their deepest drive of the game left them with first-and-goal from the nine, but impressive USC run defense and a dropped pass in the end zone left Indiana with fourth-and-goal from the 10. Onto the field trotted senior defensive back Dave Kornowa, sporting No. 14, who kicked a 27-yard field goal — his second made kick of the season — to put the Hoosiers on the board and make it a 7-3 ballgame. It would be Indiana’s only score of the 1968 Rose Bowl.
Fifty-eight years later, Kornowa is a Zionsville resident, professionally retired and with plenty of stories to tell. Originally from Toledo, Ohio, Kornowa graduated from Woodward High School and found himself with offers to play football at the University of Kentucky, the University of Michigan and Indiana University.
“Michigan was too close to me, and I had a cousin who I thought was shafted and never played, so I said I wasn’t going to go there,” Kornowa says. “Indiana sounded pretty good. It wasn’t that far from Toledo. I didn’t realize they had never won very often, but I figured Indiana had just as good a chance as anybody else.”
Playing for a Big Ten school gave Kornowa a chance to fulfill his goal of playing in the Rose Bowl, a game that, from 1947 to 2024, hosted the champions of the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences. Indiana won a total of just five games across Kornowa’s first three seasons, but his patience paid off with a stellar season for the Hoosiers in 1967, his senior year. Indiana won its first eight games that season and bounced back from its only regular-season loss, on the road against Minnesota, with a 19-14 win over third-ranked Purdue in the Old Oaken Bucket game, which IU hosted at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington.
“We had some pretty talented sophomores that played that year, and it was the first recruiting that John Pont did as our new coach,” Kornowa says. “He got an exceptionally talented team, and all of the sophomores and freshmen that year turned out to be valuable players.”
After a conference title tiebreaker and vote that favored Indiana over Minnesota and in-state rival Purdue, the Hoosiers took their breakout season all the way to Pasadena for a matchup with Southern California, led by O.J. Simpson, the nation’s leading rusher and a future Pro Football Hall of Famer, in the Rose Bowl. Indiana entered as heavy underdogs, and Kornowa and his teammates, led by Pont, came in with a chip on their shoulders.
“We didn’t care about what everybody thought,” Kornowa says. “We had confidence in ourselves and we performed.”
Among the nearly 103,000 in attendance were Kornowa’s parents and siblings, who traveled from Toledo for the big game. With the trip to Pasadena, Kornowa also got to live out another childhood dream, as the family visited Disneyland.
“That was a place I’d always wanted to go growing up,” Kornowa says. “I started watching Walt Disney when I was 11 years old, so it was a fantastic time.”
The leisure of the trip was balanced with demanding practices, as Pont and the coaching staff prepared Kornowa and the Hoosiers for their biggest challenge yet.
“All we ever did was run wind sprints,” Kornowa says. “We didn’t have any contact, but wind sprints like there was no tomorrow. I think we ran 40 a practice. We had to be quick.”
Although the game ended in a 14-3 loss at the hands of the Trojans — a performance in which the Hoosiers covered the two-touchdown spread — Kornowa finished his career vindicated by his team’s heart and attitude amid adversity.
“We were supposed to win one or two ballgames that year, and we ended up winning nine,” Kornowa says.
After graduating from Indiana, Kornowa returned to Toledo and found success with his father and brothers in the food distribution business. He and his wife later moved to Zionsville around the time their daughter, Erika, decided to follow in Kornowa’s footsteps by attending IU. A family that bleeds Hoosier crimson, Dave and Erika made the trip back to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl following Indiana’s historic 2025 season, led by Heisman-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza and culture-setting head coach Curt Cignetti. It was Kornowa’s first trip back to the Rose Bowl since his field goal 58 years earlier, and while he remains humble about his playing days, Erika took every opportunity to brag on him.
Kornowa, who turns 80 in March, looks back fondly on his time with Indiana and says he has “enjoyed every day” in Zionsville since retirement. He periodically makes the 66-mile trip to Bloomington to take in Indiana sporting events, taking pride in his alma mater.
“I’m a big-time Hoosier,” Kornowa says. “I’m glad I got a chance to play football there, and I’m glad I’m a graduate of Indiana University.”
