Rose Bowl Locker Rooms: 1920s vs. Now

The Rose Bowl has undergone a $181 million renovation to be completed by its July 4 America Fest and is welcoming guests to view the new digs, as well as more hidden locations in the stadium that have been around since its 1920s construction.

The first-ever public Rose Bowl tours begin Saturday and Patch got a sneak peek Thursday of the behind-the-scenes spots on the tour.

Read more about public Rose Bowl tours here.

In addition to touring an elaborate new seating pavilion—the core of the renovations—Patch also got to follow in the footsteps of sports legends and step inside the large UCLA locker room renovated in 2007 and the significantly smaller original locker room used from the 1920s to the 1970s.

See video of the old and new locker rooms, above in this post.

The original locker room had been used as storage since the 1970s, Rose Bowl Tour Sales and Operations Coordinator Kayla Kilpatrick told Patch, and was recently cleaned out to prepare for the public tours and repainting.

Rose Bowl memorabilia stored for many years will get a new place in the spotlight as it will soon grace the walls of the original locker room. In the video attached to this post you will notice the memorabilia, which has not been hung yet.

If the Rose Bowl’s original locker room seems small, Kilpatrick added that the large holes in the room’s floor are where toilets used to be, so the actual changing area was even smaller than it may appear.

The newer UCLA locker rooms are also more open “because they didn’t want any posts or columns to separate the team and wanted them to be unified,” said Kilpatrick.

Check back on Patch for photos of the new Rose Bowl seating pavilion, inside and out, and more.

What do you think of the 1920s Rose Bowl locker room compared to the current locker room? Could you imagine fitting an entire football team inside the original locker room space? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.