Winter break is a wonderful time of year. Plenty of time to catch up on sleep, spend time with family and, of course, watch tons of football. With this football season comes many bowl games that are played throughout the country, from the Sugar Bowl to the Holiday Bowl.
On the Sunday after Christmas I was venturing with my relatives to look at the Loews Ventana Hotel here in Tucson when three large buses parked in from of the resort. I soon realized that the people coming out were players from the Nevada Wolf Pack football team. They were here in Tucson because they had been given the opportunity to go bowling. No, not bowling as the dude would imagine but playing in a football bowl game. This bowl game is being held in none other than Arizona Stadium. The NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl is the first bowl in over 15 years to be here in Tucson. It will be played on Dec. 29 with the teams from Nevada and Colorado State. Initially, the bowl game held in Arizona Stadium was called the Copper Bowl, which has since been held in another area and renamed as the Cactus Bowl. The Insight Bowl was then held in Tucson until 1999, but since then has been held in the city of Tempe. Thanks a lot ASU.
Both of these teams are in the Mountain West Conference. This makes it the first non-championship bowl game between two conference opponents in more than 35 years. The last one was in 1979 when Nebraska played Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. Many preparations have been made for this to be a very exciting one that will hopefully lead to a continuous bowl game here in Tucson.
The man behind bringing the bowl game to the Old Pueblo is Ali Farhang, a local attorney, U of A alum and assistant football coach at Salpointe High School. He hopes to bring an economic boom to the city with this bowl game. I think that this bowl game is a key solution as well. Tucson, has always been low on the totem pole in terms of growth. And yet, only 90 minutes north is Phoenix, which is a huge metropolis. Perhaps though, Tucson should stay the way it is. I have always seemed to like Tucson in the fact that it has a much more natural, actual desert feel compared to the hustle and bustle of Phoenix – which tries it seems – to be LA.
All in all, I as many others are happy and excited that a bowl game is being held again in Tucson. It will write a new chapter for growth in Tucson. Though I am afraid we will have to wait and find out to see if Tucson will ever change.
