The Grand Old Bowl Tradition – Bunk! – Part 2
by Mike Felten
(continued from 12/12/10 – The Grand Old Bowl Tradition – Bunk! – Part 1)
The traditions of other major bowl games have already been trumped by commerce.
The first experience that I had attending a major bowl was the Orange Bowl. I booked myself in a hotel that assured me that they were close to the stadium. They were honest with me, but I assumed that the Orange Bowl game would be played at the Orange Bowl. I still think that was a reasonable assumption. From 1938-1995 I would’ve been correct.
It had been the home of five Super Bowls and where teams of the Big XII (and it’s precursors) hoped to wind up.
Of course, tradition be damned, they moved the Orange Bowl away from the stadium with the same name to a stadium that has more aliases than a petty felon from Joe Robbie to Landshark to Sun Life.
I do know that it is a long cab ride from the airport in Miami. It is quicker and cheaper to fly into Fort Lauderdale.
The Cotton Bowl has also moved from the Cotton Bowl. I haven’t quite figured out if the Cotton Bowl Classic is like the new Coke or the old one. The Jerry Jones venue is on the verge of making a bid to join the BCS championship series. Tradition has already been sufficiently trampled.
The Oklahoma-Texas series has managed to upgrade the old stadium and keep the Red River Rivalry in the middle of the Texas State Fair.
The Cotton Bowl parade has suffered. Cotton is no longer king in Dallas. The parade in 2002 was a couple of high school marching bands parading around the shuttered fairgrounds. The Arkansas Razorback band led their fans to one end of stadium and the Pride of Oklahoma band led it’s followers to a pep rally on the other side.
It wasn’t the old Cotton Parade that used to wind through downtown Dallas and televised on national TV.
The phenomena of the female drill teams were the signature cachet of the parade, particularly the Kilgore College Rangerettes. They are kind of the June Taylor dancers with wooden rifles.
They have no home on the freeway leading to Arlington where the new stadium is. At least, the parade looks like it has returned to downtown Dallas. It won’t be the going up against the Rose Parade in the New Year’s Day TV ratings though.
The Fiesta and the Sugar Bowls have been similarly moved and shaped into place. If you equate tradition with a five-year old luxury condo, we have it in place.
The “bowl tradition” is a tradition in name only. Florida State’s Chief Osceola and the Sooner Schooner were banned from the field in the 2000 championship. School bands don’t make the television half time show. You might get a glimpse of the Texas Aggie band, but the traditions of individual schools are always pre-empted by the network talking heads.
Tradition has been trampled out of the games for years. So let’s not let that be forwarded as an excuse to prevent us from achieving a true national championship series.
Mike Felten is an SFC sportswriter fellow. He is a music industry veteran, a performer, and owner of the Landfill Records, the former Record Emporium, navigating the transitioning areas of intellectual property and musicians rights. Born and raised in Chicago, Mike is a long time Chicago Cubs fan and a Oklahoma Sooners booster.
