The most impressive streak in sports media ended Wednesday

Art Spander is as proudly old school as any working sports writer in the country. He graduated from UCLA in 1960. He began his career as a news writer for United Press International that same year, and moved to sportswriting for the Santa Monica Outlook in 1963. He went to work for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1965, was named the lead columnist for the San Francisco Examiner in 1979, and his column in the Oakland Tribune became a Bay Area fixture.

Spander picked up an AOL email address in the 1990s and still uses it.

Now in his ninth decade of life, Spander's streak of attending or covering every Rose Bowl game ended Wednesday at 70. (He missed the 2021 game in Texas, which was relocated due to the coronavirus pandemic.) Spander is recovering from an issue with his vision, and plans to be in Pebble Beach soon to cover the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Spander's place in the Rose Bowl press box was so well-worn, the game organizers left an empty seat for him, with a single rose covering a program, during Wednesday's game between Oregon and Ohio State.

The great Art Spander’s streak of 70 straight Rose Bowls comes to an end. Health and happiness in 2025, Art. pic.twitter.com/If8gR1mm5F
— Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) January 1, 2025

The Rose Bowl inducted Spander into its Hall of Fame in 2016.

"My first was Jan. 1954, Michigan State-UCLA in beautiful weather," Spander wrote recently on his eponymous website. "My father, who had a mom-and-pop grocery store in the Highland Park district of L.A., near Pasadena, dropped me off. I wore a white shirt and signed up to peddle programs. I made $10."

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