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Roy Riegels (April 4, 1908 – March 26, 1993) was an American college football center who played for the California Golden Bears from 1927 to 1929. Given the thousands of college football players in the US in any given year, making any team was a dream come true, but then being on a Rose Bowl team was certainly something else.

              Roy was indeed an exceptionally smart football player. Riegels played center on the 1928 California Golden Bears football team, which had a 6–1–2 record going into the Rose Bowl game. Riegels led the Golden Bears in conference minutes played that season, and he was voted onto the All-Coast team. He was a good blocker, but his strength was playing "roving center" on defense, similar to the present-day middle linebacker position. Cal's coach, Nibs Price, credited Riegels as the smartest player he had ever coached.

Riegels, who played center on both offensive and defensive lines, during the game picked up a fumble by Tech's Jack "Stumpy" Thomason. Just 30 yards away from the Yellow Jackets' end zone, Riegels was somehow turned around and ran 69 yards in the wrong direction. Teammate and quarterback Benny Lom chased Riegels, screaming at him to stop. Known for his speed, Lom finally caught up with Riegels at California's 3-yard line and tried to turn him around, but he was immediately hit and piled on by a wave of Georgia Tech players who tackled and then threw him over the goal-line.

Roy unfortunately will be forever known as "Wrong Way Riegels” due to his infamous wrong-way run in the 1929 Rose Bowl, which is often cited as the worst blunder in the history of college football.

Bad decisions and wrong turns in life are not unique to Roy Riegels. 

John chapter fourteen gives us a reassuring promise that someday Jesus will return and take his followers to be with him and the Father.  Thomas is concerned about the way that this will happen.  In verse six:  Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

              I believe that these words of Jesus were deliberately chosen to be plain, straight forward, and lacking any ambiguity in order to prevent more wrong way blunders with much more serious consequences than the outcome of a football game.

Pastor Dave