North Carolina State University Athletics
Behind The Scenes With Tony Haynes: Bowled Over
1/2/2002 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
Jan. 2, 2002
By Tony Haynes
It seems I can't go a day without it. For my daily dose of anger, misinformation and irrational discussion, I'm always moved to spin the radio dial in my car to frequencies that are home to local sports talk shows.
On one particular day after Christmas, the host of one show to which I was listening started whipping his listeners into a frenzy by talking about bowl games. More specifically, he was annoyed by the existence of so many postseason college football games.
"We've got waaaaaaaaay too many bowl games," the host preached. "There's the GMAC Bowl, the Mainstay Independence Bowl, the Wells Fargo Sun Bowl and the Silicon Valley Classic. It is getting absolutely out of control. There are waaaaaaaay too many 6-5 teams playing in bowl games. Those *%#* teams should be sitting on their @*&$# during the holidays instead of preparing to play in a bowl game."
"You go dude," I exclaimed while taking my hand off the wheel to pump my fist in the air.
The callers were just as emphatic.
"Hey man, Smitty from Smithfield here," the caller said. "Last night I was watching that Carmax-Hanes Hosery-Playtex.com Bowl and it just made me sick. I was so annoyed that I slipped in a tape of the 1986 Daytoner Five-Hunderd."
"Fire the coach," said another caller. "Fire 'em all. Ain't none of 'em know more about football than me."
After listening to about 15 minutes of this indignant rhetoric, it dawned on me: "why exactly do people get upset about the number of bowl games that are played?" I wondered. Bowl games are not personally offensive nor do they provide a safe haven for terrorists.
What they do is to provide coaches, players and fans an opportunity to travel to some pleasant location (Well, unless of course you're Clemson or Louisiana Tech) and share in a worthwhile experience.
Bowl games afford extra practice time for young players while also giving seniors one last chance to suit up in their school colors. Bowl games provide TV exposure, and in most cases, extra revenue for the schools involved.
The fact that two 6-5 teams may square off in one of the smaller bowls doesn't somehow diminish the importance of the BCS bowls, or any other game for that matter. OK, I'll concede that a 5-6 North Texas team probably shouldn't have gotten a bid to the New Orleans Bowl, but is it really worthy of a three-hour temper tantrum thrown by some radio talk show host who is just one year removed from junior high school? I mean, nobody seems to get upset when a 12-17-college basketball teams lands a spot in the Big Dance by winning its conference tournament.
This whole thing stinks. I am sick and tired of people spending an inordinate amount of time getting upset by the proliferation of college football bowl games. If I here so much as one more show on this subject I'm going to take a tire iron and, and.....
On second thought, maybe I should calm down and get this rage out of my system by tuning to one of those music of your life stations.
