"Duffy [coach Duffy Daugherty] put us in that monastery in Sierra Madre [the Passionist Fathers' Retreat] for two nights before the game because he could see we weren't right mentally," Apisa said. "He was very worried about it and kept telling us that."
Recalled UCLA's 196-pound left defensive tackle that day, Terry Donahue:
"Michigan State was so much better than we were it was ridiculous. If we'd had to play them 10 times that year, we'd have been 1-9."
(Apisa agreed, emphatically.)
"The thing I remember about Stiles was that he threw up before every game," Donahue said. "And Prothro had just started to talk to us before we took the field when we all heard him heaving in the bathroom. Tommy said: 'Well, we all know Stiles is ready to play.' "
The 28-year-old coach of the UCLA secondary that season was John Cooper, now the Ohio State coach.
"Bob Stiles, to this day, is the greatest instinctive football player I ever coached," Cooper said.
"He had an ability to anticipate, to know exactly where a play was going. He set a UCLA record for interceptions that year [nine] and he had two in that Rose Bowl game.
"That Michigan State team was loaded; it had more talent than any team I'd ever seen to that point. Look up how many guys on that roster played in the NFL. [It was 11. UCLA had three that day who played in the NFL.]
"We weren't really very good. Prothro did a great coaching job that year, and he was particularly good in that game.
"Guys like Stiles, Colletto, Grider and Donahue were undersized kids with big hearts and who were very coachable. And they never beat themselves that year.
"And what a play that was by Stiles. In my den at home, that framed Sports Illustrated picture of Stiles making the play is still on my wall."
Stiles was named the game's most outstanding player. His nine interceptions that season set a UCLA record that lasted 26 years.
Although Stiles was a junior that day, it was his final game. Because he'd attended one semester at Mississippi as a freshman, he was ineligible his senior year, after transferring to UCLA from Long Beach City College.
The San Diego Chargers signed him as a free agent and he lasted two days in their 1966 training camp before Sid Gillman cut him.
"All of a sudden everyone was 6-4, 220 and really fast," Stiles recalled. "I was getting killed. I ran into Gillman at a Charger game a few years ago. I reintroduced myself and told him: 'Thank you for saving my life.' "
