Fiesta Bowl
From NCAA Wiki
| Fiesta Bowl | |
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| Sponsor | Tositos |
| Location | Glendale, AZ |
| Stadium | University of Phoenix Stadium |
| Website | Tostitos Fiesta Bowl |
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History
The first Fiesta Bowl was played on December 27 in 1971, the first Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day came in 1982 and the first, and only, Fiesta Bowl played on New Year’s Eve was in 1997.
Tony Dorsett was the first Heisman winner to play in a Fiesta Bowl, while Marcus Allen, Vinny Testaverde, Rashaan Salaam, Danny Wuerffel, Ricky Williams and Eric Crouch are other Heisman winners to take the field at Sun Devil Stadium.
Since the first game at Sun Devil Stadium in 1971, the Fiesta Bowl has generated an economic impact of more than $1 billion to the state's economy and paid more than $282 million to universities and colleges.
In addition, 19 of the past 20 Fiesta Bowl games have been sell-outs. All of this is because of a dream that has since turned into reality, helping to make the Fiesta Bowl one of the nation’s top bowl games. It all started in 1968 when former Arizona State University President G. Homer Durham spoke to an athletic awards banquet and proposed that Phoenix should have a football bowl game.
The idea could have died right there, as it had several times in the past. But Arizona Republic sports editor Verne Boatner wrote a column supporting the idea, and several Valley of the Sun business leaders banded together to bring a bowl game to Phoenix.
Getting a bowl game anywhere is a long shot. Countless contingencies from cities all over the country had paraded before the NCAA's Extra Events Committee, lavish presentations in hand, only to be told, "No, the NCAA doesn't need another bowl game."
And in December of 1968, a bowl game for Phoenix was merely an idea, let alone a well thought out plan to place before the NCAA.
But then things started to roll. Prominent Valley sports enthusiast Glenn Hawkins called a meeting of the area's top community leaders, who ultimately put together the package that was to become one of the most phenomenal stories in bowl history.
"There was a lot of interest," Boatner said at the time. "A lot more than I thought there would be. I didn't believe that so many influential people could be brought together in one place."
Jack Stewart, who was one of the driving forces for bringing the game to Phoenix, was elected to head the effort. He and the current original members of the Executive Committee -- Hawkins, George Isbell, Jim Meyer, Donald D. Meyers, Karl Eller, Bill Shover and George Taylor, later to be joined by Don Dupont -- put together the successful plan that would get an NCAA sanction for the game.
Key to the Fiesta effort was to win over the Western Athletic Conference for a tie-up. Then WAC Commissioner Wiles Hallock provided the direction to achieve that -- his immediate past position had been that of Director of Public Relations at the NCAA's headquarters in Kansas City.
With Hallock along, the Phoenix group appeared before the NCAA Extra Events Committee on Jan. 10, 1970, in Washington D.C. It was at that time that the group proposed to make the bowl a charitable venture, with portions of the proceeds committed to the fight against drug abuse. This was to be a key point for the Fiesta Bowl. The NCAA had granted only one new bowl during the 1960s -- Atlanta's Peach Bowl, also a charity game.
The Fiesta's effort, however, was thorough. Then Washington State athletic director and chairman of the NCAA Extra Events Committee Stan Bates said that he never had seen a group as well prepared. A few months later, Bates would become commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference after Hallock moved to the Pacific-8 Conference.
The group stressed vital points in its presentation. They told the NCAA that the Rose Bowl was the only bowl game outside of the South and that Arizona had the population and the climate, the game would be played for a worthy cause and they hastened to add that good WAC teams had been overlooked for bowl appearances in the past.
"Your presentation was so well received that I can think of no important questions to ask," Bates said afterwards.
But victory was to be farther away. On April 27, 1970, the NCAA Council, the official policy-making body of the organization, rejected six bowl bids, including one for the Valley of the Sun.
The group could have taken the defeat and moved on in their lives. Instead, they kept on fighting. A year later, on April 26, 1971, the NCAA Council approved a bowl game in Arizona, and the Fiesta Bowl was born.
The 2006 Fiesta Bowl was played at Sun Devil Stadium, Which is home to the Arizona State Sun Devils. The 2007 Edition will be played at University of Phoenix Stadium is also home to the Arizona Cardinals. University of Phoenix Stadium will also host the Inagural BCS National Championship Game.
Results
| NCAA Bowl Games | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Rose Bowl • Fiesta Bowl •Orange Bowl • Sugar Bowl • BCS National Championship Game | ||||
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EagleBank Bowl • New Mexico Bowl • St. Petersburg Bowl • Las Vegas Bowl • New Orleans Bowl | ||||
