BUZZ MAGAZINE – The Rose Bowl is the oldest bowl game of all, and many college football fans think it is the greatest. A Macoupin County man was a star of that game in 1957.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
Don Dobrino, who became a high school coaching legend at both Gillespie and Mount Olive, played a pivotal role in helping Iowa run past Oregon State 35-19 in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day 1957. It was the final game for Dobrino in a standout career with the Hawkeyes.
Before that, Dobrino was one of the top athletes in both the history of Macoupin County and of the South Central Conference, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this season.
A four-sport athlete at Mount Olive High School from 1949-53, Dobrino earned first-team all-state honors from the Champaign News-Gazette as a senior in 1952. Mount Olive was a member of the SCC from its inception in 1926 until 1980.
The 6’2, 200-pound Dobrino was highly recruited, but chose Iowa and became a three-year letterwinner from 1954-56. He was a regular starter in both the Hawkeye offensive and defensive backfields during one of the most glorious periods in the school’s football history. During his senior season, he also was Iowa’s primary kick and punt returner.
Dobrino’s head coach at Iowa was Forest Evashevski, a former Michigan star who had been in the same backfield with the Wolverines as Tom Harmon, the 1940 Heisman Trophy winner. Evashevski went 52-27-4 in nine seasons as Iowa head coach from 1952-60.
Evashevski’s assistants included Bump Elliott, a product of Bloomington, Ill. who was also a former Michigan standout. Elliott later was the Michigan head coach from 1959-68 before a distinguished tenure as Iowa’s athletic director from 1970-91.
Another Hawkeye assistant was Jerry Burns, who was on Vince Lombardi’s staff in Green Bay from 1966-67 before a long tenure as offensive coordinator, and later head coach, of the Minnesota Vikings.
During his Iowa career, Dobrino’s teammates included lineman Alex Karras, a four-time Pro Bowl pick for the Detroit Lions who became a Hollywood actor; tight end Jim Gibbons, a three-time Pro Bowler for Detroit; and quarterback Randy Duncan, the top pick in the 1959 NFL draft. Several other teammates won Grey Cups in the Canadian Football League.
Iowa rolled to a 9-1 overall record in Dobrino’s senior season of 1956, as he was a key component in the Hawkeyes’ bruising ground game.
In Week 2, the Hawkeyes beat Oregon State, their eventual opponent in the Rose Bowl, 14-13 in Iowa City. Iowa rallied from a 13-0 deficit at the start of the fourth quarter for the win.
That lifted Iowa to #20 in the polls, and the Hawkeyes kept rising with wins over Wisconsin and Purdue, who was led by future Kansas City superstar Len Dawson. They were #7 in the polls and 5-0 overall heading into a home game against #17 Michigan on November 3 before falling 17-14 on a game-winning touchdown with 1:06 remaining, their only loss of the season.
Iowa rebounded the next week with a critical 7-0 win at Minnesota, setting up a meeting with Ohio State at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City on November 17 to decide the Big Ten title.
The Buckeyes entered on a 17-game conference winning streak, Iowa, which entered the game at #7, relied on its defense once again, which came through with their second straight shutout in a 6-0 victory over the #6 Buckeyes. Iowa fans ripped down the goal posts at Kinnick Stadium, then marched through the streets of Iowa City in celebration.
The Hawkeyes, which rose to #3, then finished off the regular season with a resounding 48-8 win over Notre Dame in Iowa City.
The Big Ten title was Iowa’ first since 1922, and sent them to the Rose Bowl for the first time ever. Their opponent was Oregon State, which came into the game ranked #10, but was no match for the powerful Hawkeyes, who rolled 35-19 behind 301 rushing yards on the afternoon.
Dobrino was one of the stars of the game, finishing with 64 rushing yards on just four carries, a 16.0 average. Late in the first quarter, he ran 37 yards to the nine-yard line, setting up Iowa’s second touchdown of the day.
In a time before wall-to-wall media coverage, Dobrino’s Iowa teams appeared on national television four times, including the Rose Bowl game - his biggest stage.
Clearly, he delivered. The Des Moines Register wrote that Dobrino and three other Iowa seniors went “off into immortality” with the victory. Sportswriter Bob Hunter of the Los Angeles Examiner declared that “I thought Don Dobrino was [Iowa’s] best runner.”
Dobrino finished as Iowa’s second-leading rusher that season with 437 yards on 87 carries, and led the Hawkeyes in both kick and punt returns and return yardage. He also intercepted two passes on defense.
The Associated Press chose the Iowa football season and Rose Bowl bid as the best sports story of 1956. The Hawkeyes finished at #3 in the AP poll, and would win the Big Ten two more times in the next four years. By then, Dobrino had become a pro athlete, only in a different sport.
Though he was selected in the tenth round (117th overall) by Washington in the 1957 NFL draft, Dobrino, who had also played baseball at Iowa, chose that sport. A righthander, he pitched in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization from 1957-62, rising as high as Class AAA.
In 1965, Dobrino began his legendary head football coaching career at DePue High School in northern Illinois, where he stayed through 1969. He then was named to the same position at Gillespie in 1970, where he remained for twenty-seven years.
In that time, he fashioned a 163-99 record, including runner-up finishes in the IHSA playoffs in 1976, when Gillespie entered the title game undefeated, and 1990.
In 1997, Dobrino returned to his alma mater, Mount Olive, and led the Wildcats back to football prominence, going 76-57 in thirteen seasons. He was at his best from 2005-07, when Mount Olive was a combined 33-5 with two appearances in the IHSA semifinals. His last seven Wildcat teams qualified for the playoffs.
Dobrino then went back to Gillespie as an assistant under head coach Don Borgini, who had played under Dobrino in an earlier era. After Borgini retired in 2015, Dobrino served as head coach for two more seasons, then remained as an assistant coach for two more years before finally retiring at age 83. He had coached high school football for 53 years.
In 2019, the Gillespie High School field was dedicated in Dobrino’s honor. Dobrino died in July 2021 at the age of 86.
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville. He may be reached at ilcivilwar@yahoo.com or 217-710-8392.
This story originally published in the January 2026 issue of The Prairie Land Buzz Magazine, http://www.thebuzzmonthly.com. All rights reserved.
