The aftermath of the Rose Bowl ticket controversy took a strange twist Wednesday, when it was learned that a longtime UCLA official, booster and friend of Coach Terry Donahue was allowed to purchase 4,000 tickets for this year's game.
The revelation that Angelo M. Mazzone III, a UCLA graduate, former Bruin associate athletic director and current Westside businessman, received the large allotment came in the wake of Tuesday's announcement by State of Wisconsin officials that they were filing lawsuits against three travel firms that allegedly reneged of promises of Rose Bowl tickets for Badger fans.
This year's Rose Bowl, in which Wisconsin beat UCLA, 21-16, became one of the most sought-after tickets in the history of the game. The Badgers hadn't been to the Rose Bowl since 1963, and their appearance here generated ticket demand that caught even the most veteran ticket brokers by surprise.
The Wisconsin attorney general's office estimated, in the statement Tuesday, that as many as 1,000 Badger fans were deprived of tickets for the game that they had been promised.
The statement from the State of Wisconsin listed concerns about, among other things, the fact that UCLA had allowed one person to purchase a block of 4,000 tickets. No name was mentioned in that statement, and when Joseph D. Mandel, vice chancellor of legal affairs at UCLA, was asked about it Wednesday, he declined to name the ticket purchaser. Later, Mandel called The Times and said that Mazzone was willing to have his name released publicly as the buyer.
Peter Dalis, athletic director at UCLA, said Wednesday night that Donahue had no knowledge of Mazzone's ticket purchase "until I told him Wednesday afternoon." Dalis, admitting the two were longtime friends, said, "No, Terry Donahue was not involved in any of the ticket distribution of UCLA's Rose Bowl allocation."
Donahue could not be reached for comment.
Dalis described the sequence of events that led to Mazzone's purchase:
"Angelo mentioned to us just prior to the USC game (which UCLA needed to win to make the Rose Bowl) that he'd be interested in buying some Rose Bowl tickets if we went," Dalis said. "I told him that I couldn't make any commitment at that time, because I didn't know what the rest of our needs would be."
