BATON ROUGE — With apologies to ‘90s rap philosopher Sir Mix-A-Lot. . .
“I like big bowls and I cannot lie
I even like the small ones, something that I can’t deny. . .”
Gentlemen and ladies, start your corporate sponsors.
The first seven of college football’s 41 post-season games spread over 24 days in 18 states and 36 cities with multiple bowls in eight locales start Saturday.
That includes Shreveport’s 47th annual Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, still surviving as the 11th-oldest bowl game thanks to almost 20 years of sweat equity from its executive director, Missy Setters. It kicks off at 8:15 Saturday night on ESPN.
I’m not ashamed to say I’m a bowl alcoholic. Even though ESPN owns 17 of the bowls after creating them strictly to fill holiday broadcast schedules, I make it a point to watch a sliver of every bowl game. And that includes the rotating pair of New Year’s Six bowls serving as College Football semifinal hosts and the national title game which is bid to various cities.
Why subject myself to this self-inflicted torture? Well, after covering 70 postseason games in 17 different bowls plus national championships and having spent almost 30 years of my sports writing career in Memphis where the Liberty Bowl has been a staple of the sports scene since 1965, I understand the true value of bowls.
In the last 20 years as the college football public has demanded a format to determine a national champ, it’s become the norm of the viewing public influenced by a world of “how loud can I scream my absolutely correct opinion” media to dump on bowls.
Their collective party line: Bowls don’t determine the national champion, so they’re meaningless. A 6-6 team doesn’t deserve to be rewarded with a bowl bid. What’s the point?
For the players, it’s not just the motherlode of bowl swag that they receive.
It’s spending several days with teammates and creating memories through bowl activities such as the Citrus Bowl teams riding rollercoasters at Disney World or competing in Texas Bowl rodeo events in Houston or a Music City Bowl hot chicken eating contest in Nashville or the Peach Bowl basketball shooting challenge in Atlanta (won by LSU in 2019 when QB Joe Burrow hit 10 of 12 shots before throwing 7 TDs and hanging 63 points on Oklahoma in a CFP semifinal) or visiting children’s hospitals at many bowls. The I-Bowl teams, Cal and Texas Tech, stopped in at Holy Angels facility for disabled persons on Thursday.
For the communities hosting the bowls, it’s not just an economic impact. It’s about galvanizing a city by bringing volunteers together who often become bowl lifers.
This year will be the first Cotton Bowl since 1948 without bowl staff photographer Brad Bradley, who died in October at the age of 101. He photographed every game (except for the 2020 COVID year) and many of the bowl’s events.
“Mr. Bradley is a Cotton Bowl Classic treasure,” Cotton Bowl Athletic Association president and CEO Rick Baker said after Bradley’s death. “His impact on our game and generations of sports fans is truly immeasurable. He lived such an incredible life and we will miss him dearly.”
Rae Dolores Connelly, an LSU Class of 1986 graduate living in Orlando, became a Citrus Bowl Association member 10 years ago after attending the bowl’s annual “Feast on the 50” held on the Camping World Stadium field every October. The association operates both the Citrus and the Pop Tarts bowls.
“You can volunteer for as little as you want or as much as you want,” Connelly said. “I’m on the media relations committee and I’m on the pageantry committee that during the game works with bands and the cheerleaders. And I get to scout games, which I really like and I vote on which teams we invite.
“The bowl just doesn’t have an economic impact. It also stages events year-round that benefit charities, schools and revitalization in the neighborhoods around our stadium.”
Harold Graeter had his eyes immediately opened about the collective team effort involved in staging a bowl when he transitioned 25 years ago from being a former Memphis TV broadcaster to the Liberty Bowl’s associate executive director.
“The big unknown for me was all the time and effort that goes into putting on not just the bowl game but bowl week and the dozens and dozens of volunteers it takes to execute these events,” Graeter said. “Until you’re in it and see the hours of planning and pulling all those pieces together to make it all work, it’s amazing what happens.
“Why do people volunteer? It’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself. The bowl game and the activities impact and shine a positive light on our community.”
The final reason why I love bowls is they are often wildly unpredictable like No. 9 Boise State upsetting No. 7 Oklahoma 43-42 in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl using a 50-yard hook-and-ladder TD play to send the game to overtime.
Boise won on a Statue of Liberty two-point conversion run by Ian Johnson, who immediately proposed to Boise head cheerleader Chrissy Popadics in a live FOX Sports postgame interview.
Chrissy accepted. She and Ian, now a State Farm Insurance agent in Boise, remain married and have a daughter.
Needless to say, Team Johnson loves bowl games now and forever, too.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com