The Times West Virginian

WVU Sports

April 29, 2010

HERTZEL COLUMN: There is a lot in a name

By Bob Hertzel For the Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN — The Big East announced Tuesday that ... tee, hee ... that it had ... ha ha ... it had set up its bowl lineup for ... oh, my God, Ha, Ha! ... for this year and one of the bowls is ... Stop it! HA! HA! ... excuse me, this just cracks me up ... the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

The Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl!

Are they kidding? That’s a bowl game?

What happens now? Do the two teams show up and find that Alan Funt meets them at the airport and says, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!”

This is a practical joke, right?

Here’s a league, the Big East, looking for prestige, fighting for its very survival, and it accepts a chance to play in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl?

Bad enough that they’re involved with something called the Meinecke Car Care Bowl or the Papajohns.com Bowl.

Like, did you ever hear anyone say, “Man, I hope our school really has a good season so we can play in the Meinecke Car Care Bowl.”?

But Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl? lmao.

Once upon a time we had us the Rose Bowl and it was the granddaddy of them all, as they liked to say. There was the Orange and the Sugar and Cotton bowls and they were played on New Year’s Day and they meant something.

Latch onto that phrase — meant something — for a second.

The games meant something to the schools, to the players, to the communities and, yes, the industries they represented. It was a really big thing all the way around.

OK, costs soar, bowls increase and we get things like the Liberty Bowl and the Gator Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl, then they prostitute them with corporate sponsors and incorporate the sponsors’ names into the bow games.

Fine, at least they have real bowl names still.

But you’ll excuse me if I draw the line at the Bushroom and Sausage and Onion bowl or, for goodness sake, the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl.

I’m sure Beef ‘O’ Brady’s is a fine restaurant chain with scrumptious wings and fabulous burgers, but who in the world is going to take it seriously as a football game?

You think they’re gonna close down the streets of St. Petersburg and have the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Parade, like they have the Rose Parade? Who would be the grand marshal of the parade, the Brady Bunch? Bet Tom Brady wouldn’t take it. And do you wonder who will be named Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Queen? Now there’s something to put on your resume, “I was the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl Queen.”

You wonder why the Big Ten doesn’t want to look at some of these Big East schools?

For those who don’t know it, the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s bowl — goodness, that’s hard to type — used to be the St. Petersburg Bowl.

It obviously needed a corporate sponsor, but there’s nothing that said it had to be Beef ‘O’ Brady’s. Even if Beef ‘O’ Brady’s bid of two Mini Corn Dogs with an order of Roasted Garlic Fried Mushrooms and one ‘O’ Brady’s Burger and a chocolate shake to go was the best they could get, nothing said they had to take it.

Wasn’t it Shakespeare — William, the writer, not Bill, the former Notre Dame halfback who threw the winning touchdown pass in the closing seconds to beat Ohio State in 1935 in the game voted college football’s best in its first 100 years — who asked “What’s in a name?”?

Well, the truth is there’s a whole lot in a name and this may be the best name in history for a family sports restaurant, but as bowl games go, it emits the odor of all that is wrong with what once was an honorable sport — college football — and with a conference that is taking an entirely wrong approach to its survival on the American sports scene.

Its bowl alliances right now are without prestige. While it has managed to hold on to its BCS bid, that has been challenged and will continue to be, especially if the Big Ten pulls off its expected raid, its secondary bowls lack both history and tradition.

The Champs Sports Bowl, the Meinecke Car Care Bowl, the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, the Papajohns.com Bowl/AutoZone Liberty Bowl and the — hee, hee, there we go again — Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl isn’t an alignment that will keep any team from thinking about going to the Big Ten, if asked.

In fact, right now about the only bowl other than a BCS bid that could keep the interest of a Big East team would be if there was a Hooter’s Bowl.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

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