Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

A minor bowl but a major milestone

By GARY SHELTON
Published December 31, 2005

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Here in the rarified air of the postseason, Jim Leavitt was talking about defense and kicking. No upset there. When Leavitt is 100 years old and they are spoon-feeding his pudding to him, he will be talking about defense and kicking.

Outside the window, a first down away, a kid was lining up his putt on a miniature golf course. Soon, they would start to load the calliope. In other words, Meineke Car Care Bowl fever had already begun to take over downtown.

If you squinted your eyes hard enough, it looked exactly like the Rose Bowl Parade.

Or not.

Okay, okay. Let's get the one-liners out of the way. As bowls go, this isn't exactly the Sugar Bowl that South Florida finds itself in. Or the Orange. Or the Fiesta. Heck, it isn't what is left of the Cotton.

Know how they call the Rose Bowl the Granddaddy of Them All? Well, the Meineke is the Step-nephew's Cousin of Them All, Once Removed. It's the We're-Not-Going-to-Offer-a- Big-Payout-for-This-Muffler Bowl.

Someday, perhaps, it will strike USF as silly as it strikes everyone else.

For now, it feels just fine.

Let's be honest. When it comes to bowl games, those of us in Florida are horrible snobs. We have seen so many state teams make so many runs at brand-name bowls and national championships that we scoff at anything less. In Florida, there seems to be two kinds of bowls, the BCSs and the LFCs (Let's-Fire-the-Coordinators).

Somehow, that seems to have trickled down to USF fans, too. The Bulls are bringing about 5,100 fans, a number that will be repeated often in the years ahead when bowl games have some wiggle room as to who they invite.

Who knows? Perhaps it is because, for much of the season, USF was flirting with a BCS bid. Perhaps it is because USF is one of the few schools where fans would have to travel to worse weather for the holidays.

All of which leads us to the clunky-sounding Meineke Car Care Bowl, which, as it turns out, is in Charlotte. Who knew?

Someday, perhaps, the prospect of playing here will seem like something small to the Bulls, too.

For now, it feels like a pretty good place to be.

If you concentrate too long on all the things the Meineke is not, you may lose sight of what it is. For the Bulls, making their first bowl appearance, it is a rite of passage. There is a sweetness here, an achievement, that should not be overlooked. As much as people talk about there being too many bowls, as often as people make fun of the smaller ones, yes, there is room for a game such as this one in college football.

"It's huge," running back Andre Hall was saying. "A lot of guys are home right now. I'm having a ball."

"To me, it's a championship game," safety Johnnie Jones was saying. "That's how I'm looking at it."

"It's a start," guard Chris Carothers said. "From here, we go on to bigger and better things."

And maybe that's the point. Christopher Columbus' first boat ride wasn't across the Atlantic. Neil Armstrong's first plane flight didn't land on the moon.

More than a half-century ago, FSU went to its first bowl. The Cigar Bowl in Tampa. Against Wofford. Whee.

Auburn started in the Bacardi Bowl. Arkansas began in the Dixie Classic. Houston started in the Salad Bowl.

Bobby Bowden's first bowl game was the Peach. Joe Paterno's was the Gator. Steve Spurrier started at the All-American Bowl. Bear Bryant started in the Great Lakes Bowl, in Cleveland, against Villanova. Whoopie.

Ah, no wonder that Leavitt is as happy as a pig in mud.

No, really, that's how Leavitt spent his Thursday morning. He walked onto the fields at Providence Day High School, where the Bulls are practicing, and it was cold and there were puddles. He yelled out loud.

Then he yelled again. "So what?"

Leavitt flopped onto the ground, rolling in the mud. Then he rolled over and got his other side dirty, too, perhaps because he believes in a balanced attack.

Ten years ago, when Leavitt first went to work, there wasn't much more than water and mud to the USF program. Now the team is in a bowl game. That's a pretty good stride. It took Vanderbilt 65 years to get to a bowl. It took Kansas State 86. It took Rutgers 109, and the Knights didn't even get to leave New Jersey.

"I don't know if the players can feel the importance yet," Leavitt was saying. "It's impossible. It may take 20 years or so. I was at Kansas State when we went to our second bowl (the Copper: Whoo-hoo), and all the stories were about that first bowl team. That's when they got their glory."

So go ahead. Have your fun. Debate whether the Meineke should inherit all of the tradition and lore as the Continental Tire Bowl, last year's name. Discuss whether George Foreman should sing at halftime. Have a trivia contest to see who can name the most game MVPs. (Hint: Wali Lundy, Matt Schaub and Paul Peterson).

Someday, maybe USF will joke along.

For now, it feels like history.

[Last modified December 31, 2005, 00:48:13]