Bowl Fever

It was a few days before Thanksgiving. I had only been working at the newspaper a year or two when my boss said, “Rock, I need you to cover a road game for me. It’s a bowl game.”

I was excited about that, since I didn’t get much travel in those days. And a bowl game!

Wow. Orange? Sugar? Rose? Cotton?

Nope.

Valley of the Sun.

On Thanksgiving week.

I was covering Snow College. I remember eating Thanksgiving dinner alone in an empty hotel restaurant. It wasn’t all that much fun. Neither was the game. The stadium looked like a high school stadium – a stretch of bleachers down each side of the field.

That’s no knock on Snow. The Badger players and coaches were accommodating and pleasant. They were enjoying the rewards of a fine season. It’s just that I should have known back then that someday we’d end up here, where everyone has a bowl game and covering one isn’t all that unique.

Counting the BCS national championship game, there are 35 bowl games, this year. Thirty-five! Seventy of 120 teams are still playing.

Bowl season has become like youth soccer – everyone gets a trophy.

The Sun Belt Conference is sending three teams to bowls, this year. What can we look forward to this holiday season? Troy vs. Ohio (New Orleans Bowl), Florida International vs. Toledo (Little Caesars Pizza Bowl) and Middle Tennessee vs. Miami of Ohio (GoDaddy.com Bowl).

I think I’ll stop right there.

LAVELL IN THE OLD BOWL DAYS