By Lynn Ashby 26 Dec. 2016
THE TV – “Down, set, Omaha eight. Black bear forty-seven. Tight right court jester!” And the play begins. Are you ready for some football? If not, switch to the Trump Channels, aka CNN and Fox News, because all that the networks will be showing are football games, mostly of the bowl variety. Which contests have you marked on your calendar? Maybe the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl or the Nova Home Loans Bowl.
As we can see, higher academics joined with TV networks and good ol’ American greed to make another buck by selling naming rights to post-season college football games. Thus the Cotton Bowl is now the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, the Sugar Bowl is the Allstate Sugar Bowl (played at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome),? How many wingbacks are there in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl? How long will you remember the Valero Alamo Bowl? Can you be in the Red Zone in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl? It’s only a matter of time until we have the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Bowl.
. Can you be in the Red Zone in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, The ancient Rose Bowl has maintained a fig leaf over its privates with the Rose Bowl Game Presented by Northwestern Mutual, Incidentally, we all know that the Rose Bowl is the first, and granddaddy, of all the post-season bowl games, but what’s the second oldest? El Paso’s Sun bowl, 1935. The Sugar and Orange Bowls claim they ae the second oldest, but their cases are weak.
A quick story about the Sun Bowl, as told by Burt Reynolds on the “Johnny Carson Show.” Reynolds was the third-string halfback on the Florida State team that was playing in the Sun Bowl. Knowing that he wouldn’t be playing in that game – he had sat out most of the season – he and some teammates went to Juarez the night before the game, where Reynolds got totally plastered. At game time he was sitting at the end of the bench, paying no attention to the game. The starter at his position got hurt, then his backup went down. From far away, he heard a voice yelling: “Reynolds, get your helmet and get on the field!” There was just one problem, as Reynolds told it: All game long he had been throwing up in his helmet.
Years ago there were only a few major bowl games pitting the winners of the various conferences. We had the Cotton Bowl in Dallas featuring the champions of the old Southwest Conference, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, with the SEC champs, both on TV at the same time, then the Rose Bowl with the Pac 10 champ on Pacific Coast, time, and finally the Orange Bowl at night preceded by one of the strangest parades of the year. Over time, games have come and gone.
Stadiums have changed, too. Mostly the games go indoors for winter comfort. As a tad, my brother and I would sell programs at Cotton Bowl games on an icy Dallas New Year’s Day. It was so cold (how cold was it”) I actually had people approach me, not to buy a program, but to buy my woolen cap and scarf. Looking back, why was I selling those stupid programs when I could have made a tidy fortune setting up a booth selling jackets, scarves, woolen caps and gloves? The Cotton bowl is now played in the comfort of Cowboy Stadium, or AT&T MegaBox. The 1942 Rose Bowl was originally scheduled to be played in the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, Calif. But it was moved to Durham, North Carolina, due to fears about an attack by the Japanese on the West Coast following the attack on Pearl Harbor three weeks earlier.
Incidentally, during all college football games, including the bowls, the halftime is filled with commercials. OK, they pay the freight. But then they show four aging jocks sitting behind a desk telling us that Amherst is taking a licking from Williams (before 600 rabid spectators), and that Ramblin’ Rick Raspberry may break the passing record in the Upper Michigan & Lower Manitoba Conference. Couldn’t we see the bands, instead? Those students work very hard, practicing new formations and tunes weekly, and some shows are really impressive. Show the bands!
Major bowls don’t have any trouble filling the stadiums and getting top TV money, but others have had problems. Baylor once played in the late Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, and, last I heard, never did get paid. To host a bowl game, usually the idea begins with a group of city leaders forming a committee, which rounds up a sponsor (the Belk Company) to underwrite some of the costs. The committee then taps volunteers to put up signs, host pre-game banquets and buy a bunch of tickets which they hand out to employees, big customers and anyone else who promises to show up in 30 degree weather to see East West Virginia State play Oregon A&M. For the schools, it’s a big deal to be “bowl eligible” and then selected. Indeed, have you ever heard of a school declining a bowl invitation? The school selected has to pay the coach and his assistants a bonus because they must work a few weeks after the regular season is over, while their colleagues coaching non-playing teams are sitting on the couch watching bowl games on TV or, more likely, sending out resumes because they got canned. Schools promise to send the team, band, cheerleaders and mascot, and buy a certain number of tickets.
When all the bowl games are over, the top two teams left standing play for the championship, but the contest doesn’t seem to have a commercial sponsor – yet. But stand by for lots of car ads. It’s being played in Toyota Stadium, Anyway, it’s time for me to settle down on my couch, which is now my legal voting address, and watch some team I never heard of play another team which remains anonymous. “Down, set, bird dog right, alto solo!”
Ashby watches at ashby2@comcast.net
