There are 44 college bowl games in 2021. Everybody has heard of the Orange, Cotton, Sugar, and Rose bowls. But how about the Duke’s Mayo, the Tony the Tiger, the Cheez-It, and the Famous Idaho Potato Bowls. Then there is a whole group of bowl games that are not longer being played. These include such winners as the Bean, Boot Hill, Little Caesars Pizza, Oil, and Cigar Bowls. But my absolute favorite is the defunct Optimist Bowl. I think that one should be revived and that my beloved Beavers be allowed to permanently be invited to it for that sums up my feelings for every Beavers season that I can remember. There is hope at the beginning but then along comes the USC Trojans, the Stanford Tree, the WSU tobacco spitting Cougars, and the evil and vile slug eating Ducks. Seasons over and I am confined to football purgatory for another year. On a side note, when a Duck fan makes the “O” symbol with their hands are they aware that if they turn their hands over and put them down by their waists that is the American Sign Language symbol for vagina. Also, there is a rumor that the Ducks are the only major program that has a recruiter located at San Quentin. I can now totally dispel that as false as the Huskies have one there as well.
But enough of my Beaver football depression. Who comes up with these terrible bowl names? Some are obvious as they are named after their corporate sponsors in an effort to get their name before the public. I have to wonder if the sponsors had their heads up their collective asses when they thought of tacking their name to football games. For example, the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl or worse yet, the Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl. Why??? But I think I would record those games just so I could hear those tongue twister names repeated again and again during the broadcast, especially if the sponsors force it to be said by football play by play announcers who I can’t stand. For example, Chris Collensworth, “Back in the day when I played in the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl, we only had those leather helmets, and it was really rough as targeting was not a foul.” Well Chris I guess that would explain the weird shape of your head. My final word on bad corporate sponsorship choices is that at least some corporate CEOs have half a brain cause you we don’t have an American Standard Toilet or a Masengall Douche bowl.
Not only do corporations sponsor bowl games, they pay big bucks to do it. Big bowl game sponsorships can be greater than cost more than 25 million. Chick-fil-A sponsors the Orange Bowl and pays many of its employees minimum wage. While 25 million split among 140 thousand employees is a drop in the bucket, its still a Christmas bonus of about $200 each. Or spend it on health benefits or scholarships, or anything other that the stupidity of naming a bowl game. Is there really a benefit to a company’s bottom line by bastardizing the name of a bowl game.
I am old enough to remember the glory days of the Rose Bowl. It wasn’t the Capital One Rose Bowl, it was the Rose Bowl. First, we had the Tournament of Roses Parade with all the wonderful floats, marching bands and Miss America waving her best royalty waves to the cheering crowds. Then the game itself, which featured the winners of the Pac-8 and Big 10 conferences held in the Rose Bowl, a huge and wonderful stadium located in Pasadena. This game was the ultimate prize for these two conferences forever. It was a perfect day for a which a die hard Beaver fan like myself could dream about during the off season even though we had no chance of ever going to that game as the road led though USC, Washington, U of O, and some team from rural Wyoming that no one ever heard of before or since. Then along came the national championship series and the 2020 Rose Bowl was played in fucking Texas. You know the state where the Lord gave the earth an enema. And did a Pac-12 or Big-10 team play in it. No, it as Notre Dame and Alabama. A team representing the SEC and the one without a conference. SACRILEGE!!
I had thought that this was the low point in my college football experience. Then this year we had the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl. My beloved Beavers got invited to that one and actually show up to play for about 58 seconds. After that it was all Utah State. I am not sure how Jimmy Kimmel rates a bowl game of his own. He is not a big corporation. And even if he had to fork out money for a lessor bowl game, the minimum for this could be 500 thousand. Maybe he got a break by playing his clarinet in the marching bad. Now I don’t have anything against Jimmy Kimmel. I hear he is very funny. I have never watched his late-night show as at my age, bedtime is 9:30 at the latest. Besides after Carson, Leno and Letterman, anyone, no matter how talented would be a letdown. I just don’t understand how he got to sponsor a bowl game. I have never heard Jimmy Kimmel and football mentioned by any play-by-play jock in the same breath in my entire and long football watching life. And did I mention he plays the CLARINET! Football players are large people. They can play the drums or tubas but not a girly woodwind with those little keys. Their fingers would be too fat or swollen from years of being abused in the pursuit of their chosen profession. Only thing I could come up with was COVID. Perhaps there is some obscure rule that requires that at least one bowl game be sponsored by an individual and that all of the first stringers were in the Covid protocols, so that they had to go with a third string Clarinet player like Kimmel. I guess it could have been worse. My Beavers could have been invited to the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl and lose badly.
On a brighter note I just read that the pope does not consider masturbation to be a sin. Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one. Then Judy pointed out to me that this was a quote from a satirical site. Such is the luck of a Beaver fan, and I can’teven play the clarinet either.
Be First to Comment