It's not your granddaddy's Rose Bowl
Tonight's Atlantic Coast Conference game on ESPN featuring identically above-average Miami (6-3, 3-2) and Virginia Tech (6-3,3-2) reminds me of the Rose Bowl and how much it's changed and could be changing.
Huh?
Since the Rose Bowl agreed to join the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, surrendering an autonomy and isolation it had long enjoyed, a couple of moments stick out in my mind that illustrate just how a great bowl has been diminished.
Both memories, coincidentally, involve the University of Miami.
The first came in 1998, the inaugural BCS season, seconds after UCLA had lost a heartbreaking game at Miami that cost the Bruins a trip to the national title game.
With tears in their eyes, the Bruins accepted a consolation trip to Pasadena, marking the first time in history the Rose Bowl had become a booby prize.
The second moment came on Dec. 1 in 2001, when I stood on the Lane Stadium field in Blacksburg, Va., and watched a member of the Rose Bowl hand out invitational roses.
Miami had defeated Virginia Tech in a thriller that day to earn a trip to the fourth BCS title game, staged that year by the Rose Bowl, played on a Thursday night, two days after the parade.
I remember looking at Rose Bowl committee member Ed Griest and saying something like, "I bet you never imagined handing out a Rose Bowl invitation in Blacksburg."
And Griest joked, "I had to get my map to find out where it was."
A third strange Rose Bowl moment may come if Disney, which owns ABC and ESPN, outbids Fox for the BCS package that includes the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls. The deal with Fox expires after 2009-10. ABC and the Rose Bowl have a separate contract through the 2014 game.
If Disney wins the bid and all four BCS bowls come together under one umbrella, the network could move the Rose Bowl to cable television starting with the 2011 game.
That's right, ESPN, the Boo-Ya network.
The Rose Bowl in Chris Berman's beautiful "back-back-backdrop" of the Arroyo Seco?
Like a lot of things about the Rose Bowl since 1998, it will be different.
-- Chris Dufresne
Photo: The Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times
