Welcome to the new company blog for Florida Citrus Sports and our two biggest events, the Capital One Bowl and Champs Sports Bowl. Those two games - each matching top-tier teams from BCS conferences - are separated by just four days this season and they are the cornerstones for Orlando Bowl Week.
We call Orlando Bowl Week "the best bowl trip in America" because no other city puts on two games of this size in that span of time. It's a name we cribbed from the early days of the Tangerine Bowl. What is now the Capital One Bowl is one of the nation's oldest and most tradition-rich bowl games, first kicking off between Catawba College and Maryville College on January 1, 1947.
Back in those days, the T-Bowl was also called "the Little Bowl with the Big Heart" for its dedication to children's charities in Central Florida. We can't exactly call ourselves little anymore - the game rose from crowds of 9,000 in the first three years to an all-time high of 72,940 for Florida's 21-6 win over Penn State in 1998 - but we maintain that dedication to young people in our region through the efforts of the Florida Citrus Sports Foundation.
Going back to those first three years, the name of this new blog comes from the photo above, a lost keepsake from the 1949 meeting between Murray State and Sul Ross State, a game that ended in a 21-21 tie. I don't know what that phrase means or where it came from, but it sounds appropriate.
As much as we (the faithful staff of Florida Citrus Sports) love college football, a lot of us never get to see the actual bowl games we put on. The controlled panic that goes into managing a sporting event of that scale means your focus is often on anything but what's happening on the field.
As of last month, I'm starting my seventh (!) season with FCSports. Since I arrived in Orlando in 2005, I've worked a total of 12 bowl games with a lot of great players (Tim Tebow, Darren McFadden, Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan, Knowshon Moreno, Percy Harvin, Chad Henne, Jake Long, Mark Ingram, etc.). I have seen somewhere around 15 minutes TOTAL of those 12 games. But they dressed, and I know they played.
We're looking forward to another great season of football, capping off with two great bowl games here in Orlando. Our team selection committee is already out on the road every weekend, getting ready to pick the four teams that will help make Orlando Bowl Week special.
This is going to be fun.
P.S.: Random trivia - the smiling guy in the window in that picture is Dan Blocker, a reserve guard from Sul Ross State who would go on to star as Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza. I don't know where you could possibly use that information, but there you go.