I am a frustrated sports writer. My first ambition was to become the next Dan Jenkins, an iconic Sports Illustrated writer who covered college football and professional golf for SI for a quarter century. Dan also wrote about a dozen raunchy and irreverent sports novels, the best known of which is Semi-Tough, published while I was in college. Most recently he wrote his autobiography, Life its Ownself. His books are must reading for sports fans of my generation. Dan died a couple of years ago, but his legacy lives on through  his daughter Sally Jenkins, an accomplished sportswriter in her own right for the Washington Post.

Dan lived the life I would have liked to have had, covering America’s great sporting events with humor and passion and enjoying life to the fullest while laughing at it.  So every now and then I like to do a sports piece in his honor. Given the time of the year, this is my “bowl game column”. So I am going to do a list of the most memorable (to me) bowl games of my lifetime (or before).

The 1947 Sun Bowl. Several years before I was born. Historic because it was Virginia Tech’s first ever bowl. The Gobblers, as they were then known, were coming off an amazing regular season with a record of 3-3-3. Amazing for its symmetry, not it’s excellence. The Blacksburg boys were third pick to oppose an 8-2 Cincinnati Bearcat team, the first two, Hardin-Simmons and Texas Tech, turning down the chance to spend New Year’s 1947 in freezing, blustery El Paso. Legend has it that one of the Sun Bowl Committee members was a Tech alum and got the Hokies the bid after the prior rejections. Each team received the whopping sum of $9,438 per Wikipedia, and the game was played on a frozen turf with 3 inches of snow on top. 

The fact that VPI lost 18-6 is totally irrelevant. This first ever “bowl appearance” for VPI became  mythical, since the Hokies did not get another bowl bid for 20 years. People in our area talked about the “time Tech went to the Sun Bowl” much as the Spaniards must have talked about “the time Columbus discovered America”.

The 1966 and 1968 Liberty Bowls. These bowls have to be considered together, as they represent the high water marks of Jerry Claiborne’s very successful career at Virginia Tech. Jerry’s teams were packed with over-achieving, reckless defenders like Frankie Loria (a Clarksburg kid, 2 time All-American, and the subject of a prior column), Frank “his own self” Beamer, George Foussekis, Clarence Culpepper, Dan Thacker, and Mike Widger. I was a junior high age football player during this time and tried to model myself after these stalwarts. Unfortunately, the Hokies’ offense during this period was as uninspiring against quality teams as the defense was noteworthy for its fanatical effort. So, Tech lost the 1966 Liberty Bowl to Miami 14-7 (the first Hokie game ever televised I believe – I remember watching from my parents’ den) and the 1968 game 34-17 to Ole Miss (I vividly remember Tech running a trick play on the second play of the game, with quarterback Al Kincaid acting like he was tying his shoe and snapping the ball to Radford High’s own Kenny Edwards, who went about 60 yards for a touchdown. This was perhaps the only completion of Kincaid’s career ! This piece of trickery was referred to as the “swinging gate” in those days. It apparently perturbed the Rebels mightily, as the game went downhill from there, although the Hokies had a 17-0 lead until an ill-fated onside kick failed. This loss almost ruined my Christmas season, particularly since my Cousin Bobby was at Ole Miss and did not share my love for the Gobblers). 

The 1984 Peach Bowl. My Wahoos’ first ever bowl game, an event that most thought 10 years earlier was less likely to occur than man walking on the moon. In fact, it came 15 years after Neil Armstrong’s walk. The Hoos dominated Purdue with 3 tremendous running backs – Howard Petty, Barry Word and Antonio Rice – and the “Magic Man”, Don Majkowski, at quarterback. One of the early highlights of George Welsh’s remarkable coaching career at Virginia. I remember watching the game in West Virginia with one of my law firm colleagues, a fellow Hoo. We were a good 6 beers in during the early part of the third quarter when my friend’s priest stopped by for a visit. Thankfully, the Father realized the significance of the moment and seemed not to mind being ignored.

The 1995 Peach Bowl. I was in attendance and the Hoos beat Georgia 34-27 on a last minute kickoff return for a TD by 150 pound Petey Allen. This was the UVA team that handed Florida State its first ever ACC loss. My greatest memory though of the event was running into Christiansburg High and Emory & Henry all-time great Mike Griffith at the UVA party. His son Travis was a first year defensive end for the Wahoos. Mike had been my position coach my senior year at Christiansburg High in 1970, and  I reminded him that during a preseason scrimmage that year, after I had made several consecutive tackles as a 160 pound outside linebacker, he had pounded me on the helmet and yelled “if King weighed 195, he could play anywhere in the country”. That night in Atlanta I reminded him of the story and said “Coach, I made it! I weigh 195! 25 years too late!”

The 1961 and 1962 Rose Bowls. I was in the 2nd and 3rd grades, and the University of Minnesota made its only Rose Bowl appearances. My love of sports was just taking off, and games from sunny Pasadena broadcast back to the frigid and snowy mountains of Virginia were special. But what makes these 2 games particularly special was that the Golden Gophers were led by an African-American quarterback named Sandy Stephens. This was unheard of during this era, when the SEC and ACC had no black players. Sandy led the Gophers to the 1960 national championship before the 1961 Rose Bowl and returned to Pasadena for the “granddaddy of them all” the following season. I was fascinated with Sandy, beginning a life time rooting interest in the Gophers and a secret desire to someday write Sandy’s biography. This desire was further fueled when I learned that Sandy was a product of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, near Clarksburg where I have made my home for the last 40 some years. This ambition has now been tempered by the realization that the day for this project has probably passed, as Sandy died in 2000 and the chance of interviews of his contemporaries is long gone.

The 1966 Rose Bowl. UCLA beat my Michigan State team that had Bubba Smith and George Webster (2 members of the defensive team picked by Sports Illustrated for its first century of college football all time team). Charles “Mad Dog” Thornhill, probably the greatest player ever at Lucy Addision High in Roanoke, an all black school during the era of segregation, was also on this team. This bowl game is particularly memorable because I recall it as the first Rose Bowl and Tournament of Roses parade after my family had a color television. The game enhanced my life-long love affair with the sun-drenched beauty of Pasadena at its 2 o’clockkickoff on New Year’s Day.

The 1950 Tangerine Bowl. Two of the most important men in my life, and two of the best, my Dad and James E. “Buddy” Earp, would come back from their graves and confront me if I omitted this game. Like the VPI Sun Bowl, it was played several years before I was born, but took on mythical proportions in my life. My father’s alma mater Emory & Henry took on the Saint Vincent Bearcats in Orlando and lost 7-6. Both teams were undefeated, and Buddy Earp, who a few years later became the head football coach at Christiansburg High and eventually principal of the school, was the captain and starting center for the Wasps. This E & H team became a rallying point for the college for many years and its members established a scholarship fund at Emory under the name the “Tangerine Bowl Team”. Coach Earp became one of my Dad’s dearest friends, a second father to my Cousin Joe, and one of old Christiansburg’s finest. I grew up hearing many stories about this bowl team and its accomplishments, so it has to be on my list. 

If you were looking for stories of the 2015 Rose Bowl or the 2018 Sugar Bowl, I’m sorry to disappoint. Like I said at the outset, these are MY memories.