Brooks Peterson

Monday, Jan. 4, 1999

Bowls, bowls everywhere: What a country

   If what follows strikes you as even more disjointed and unfocused than what usually appears in this space, please make allowances. Fact is, I'm pretty seriously bowled over.
   Bowled. As in all these post-season bowl games, which are proliferating like bunny rabbits even as we speak.
   I know this will (again) underline my status as a prehistoric creature, but, kids, I remember a day when you could count the number of college bowl games on the fingers of one hand, and maybe have a digit left over.
   There was the Rose Bowl, the daddy of 'em all - and, by the bye, the entity responsible for one of the most lamentable popular institutions of this troubled century: the pre-bowl parade. Pre-bowl parades, you see, gave birth to a noxious new species: the pre-bowl parade commentators. These people, all with capped teeth and stunning tans, make a living by gushing inanities for hours on end. Sure, I can tune 'em out. But ... I know they're out there, doing their ghastly work.
   Where was I? Oh, right: You had your Rose Bowl, your Sugar Bowl, your Orange Bowl, and, by no means least, your Cotton Bowl, where my beloved Longhorns frequently shone in the brilliant North Texas sunlight (except when those thugs from Notre Dame put in an appearance).
   And that was it. They were fun, and they afforded the best of the best an opportunity to make their respective cases for the national championship. (A woefully imprecise business. Now, thank goodness, we have the Bowl Championship Series to ensure that championship laurels are conferred with absolute scientific fairness. Just one more thing for which to be thankful as we pitch headlong into the New Millennium.)
   At some point, however, a bright soul said to him/herself: Hm. Look at all those people in the stands. Look at all that TV advertising. Look at all that free publicity. It could be ... just could be ... there's some serious coin to be turned here.
   Before you knew it we had the Liberty Bowl, the Holiday Bowl, the Aloha Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl (where, curiously, the BCS national championship will be decided; go figure), and on and on and on.
   My personal favorite, though, is the Humanitarian Bowl. And wouldn't you know it? On Wednesday night, the Humanitarian Bowl was won by ... the Vandals. Of the University of Idaho. Who downed the Golden Eagles of Southern Mississippi, 42-35. What a country: Where else could Vandals pluck Eagles in a Humanitarian Bowl?
   As bowls proliferated, the same deep thinkers who cooked up the new bowls, as well as those trying to defend the old bowls, began to feel some financial strain. What to do? Do the American thing, of course: Tap into some serious corporate bucks. And so it was done: On Thursday alone, we had the Equitable Liberty Bowl, the Norwest Sun Bowl, the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl.
   Other bowls dispense with the trimmings and unblushingly take the name of the sponsor, period: Take the Insight.com Bowl. Please. (Anybody know if the Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl is still out there?)
   Great. Fine. There is, however, some unfinished business we must address before the bowl picture can attain complete symmetry.
   As noted, the elite bowls showcase the best of the best. In the lesser bowls, we honor the fair-to-good. But what about the nation's truly execrable college football teams?
   My fellow Americans, can we hold our heads high when we coldly deny recognition to those who excel at ineptitude? I think not. Picture this: The Walking Wounded of North By Northwest Idaho State Polytechnic versus the Fighting Aesthetes of the Greenwich Village College of Harpsichord, with a combined record of 0 and 22 for the season, colliding in the Kitty Litter Oblivion Bowl to settle, once and for all, who is the worst of the worst.
   Can this nation, which has historically opened its arms to the downtrodden and the scorned, continue to turn its back on them in bowl season? I think not. I hope not. The fumblers, bumblers and stumblers of college football must, at long last, have their moment in the sun.
   (Peterson can be reached at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@scripps.com.)