Sunday, January 05, 2003

Well bowl me over....
Well Friday night was the grand finale of the 2002 college football bowl season. It was a game that is being touted as the "championship game of the century". Rather an easy call since the century is only three football seasons old. But for me, it was the finale to yet another season of "ruined" college football. Ruined by the profundity of bowls. I think there may have been 20+ bowls this year, highlighted again by the SomethingOrOther.com Boise Bowl. You know, the one with the electric blue football field. The one that will hurt your retinas if watched for more than five minutes. The one that always features powerhouse Boise State, whose players wear jerseys the same colors as the field so that it appears their opponents are playing a team made up of legs only.

It's also time for my annual letter to the President of the NCAA in which I outline my objections to the situation. Last year I actually received a nice reply from the President, in which reading between the official lines, I could tell he was none too happy either. My emails to them have always been sent with the utmost respect, merely pointing out that for educators and college presidents they are a bunch of pinheads. However it will be harder to contact them this year as I see that they have taken the email addresses off of their website, possibly because they are getting more opinions like mine, and because there is a new President this year........the old one having gone blind watching the Boise Bowl.

I don't want to appear to be completely negative, so I have also come up with a positive idea to improve the bowl picture this year. With 40+ teams going to bowls, realistically, most are just mediocre and the attendance at the games shows this. Who cares if a 6-6 team wins or not. What we need is more excitement. And I have a plan. I propose that we in Midland, Texas host the inaugural American Standard Plumbing Toilet Bowl to determine the nations worst team. Invite the country's two worst Division I teams to fight for their honor. The vast majority of Americans don't care if Boise State wins, or even exists, but we are a quantitative society, we keep score, we want to know who is the best.......and the worst. American's hate a loser but will pay out the nostrils to see someone humiliated. This is a win/win loser situation. Midland, Texas gets to showcase it's new mega-million dollar Burrito Grande Stadium, becoming known nationwide as the "City of Losers", the NCAA gets it's franchise fee enabling them to buy more "books" for the athletes, and football teams play all the harder during the year to avoid being invited. I am drafting up my proposal to the City Council now........