When Rose Bowl goal posts come down, it's for safety's sake For George Wiley, the most exciting moment of the Rose Bowl game comes a few seconds after the game ends. That's when the retired Pasadena police officer turned inventor lowers the goal posts at either end of the field. He devised a mechanism that uses hydraulics to safely bring them down in eight seconds, ensuring they could never be torn down by exuberant fans. The entire goal post assembly weighs just less than 1,000 pounds and has a hinge where the single post meets the crossbar. After a knob is twisted and a pin is pulled, the uprights slowly drop forward as if bowing toward midfield. They have been in place at the Rose Bowl for two seasons. "This whole thing is born out of liability, with fans rushing the field and tearing down the goal posts and hurting other fans in the process," said Wiley, 62, who concedes he can't remember fans ever rushing the field after a Rose Bowl game, and he has worked the last 40. "We take a lot of pride in not letting the field go," said Kevin Ash, chief administrative officer for the Rose Bowl game. But if it does go, you've got to make sure people don't get hurt. No one was comfortable with the idea of what could happen, especially considering that the stadium's old goal posts could only be removed entirely, not lowered. Rose Bowl officials then switched to a collapsible mechanism, but that required several workers and several minutes. College football is replete with stories of fans injured by falling goal posts. Among the incidents listed in a 2010 report published by the Journal of Sport Administration & Supervision: In 1983, a Yale student suffered a skull fracture and permanent brain damage when she was hit by a toppling goal post following a victory over Harvard. In 1998, after a victory over Oregon, an Oregon State student was struck in the head by a 700-pound goal post that fell 40 feet. She suffered a fractured skull but survived. In 2005, a University of Minnesota Morris student died from head trauma after a goal post fell on him following a homecoming win. With Wiley's system, one person can completely lower a goal post in eight seconds, and - with the help of a household drill - raise it in about a minute. Wiley has submitted the paperwork for a patent on the mechanism, which costs $26,000 (for both goal posts) and has been installed at Chase Field in Phoenix, which hosts high school all-star games, and at Boston College. His Monrovia company is called First Down Football Products. "He kept complaining about the goal post system, and I challenged him to come up with something better," said Darryl Dunn, Rose Bowl general manager. So he retired, and he did. It's really ingenious what he's done. George has been a big part of the Rose Bowl for decades, and he's come up with something that's going to make us better for years to come. Before he got into law enforcement in 1969, Wiley had studied to become an engineer. "My third year of school, the math got terribly tough, and the city of Pasadena was going to give me $800 a month to be a police officer," said Wiley, who attended Cal Poly Pomona. I had this conversation with my wife the other day. If I had one big do-over in life, I might not have treated college like one big social event. The first time I saw `Animal House,' I thought it was a documentary. Now, his party starts when the big event ends. In one memorable instance, the ability to quickly bring down the goal posts backfired. Typically, when the clock hits 0:00, Wiley and another worker at the opposite end of the field immediately begin the operation of bringing them down. However, this year's USC-UCLA game ended on a penalty after the clock had expired, so the game was extended by a play. The infraction happened on the south end of the field, where Wiley was, so he kept his goal post up. But the worker at the north end didn't see the flag and had lowered his goal posts. The final play took place with only one set of goal posts in an upright position. The officials didn't seem to notice, but they would have had there been a turnover leading to a return in the other direction. Wiley can laugh about it now. "These goal posts are my babies," he said. I worry and worry. Like any doting father, Wiley is never completely at ease until his babies are safely down for the night.