Wisconsin and the Rose Bowl

I'm getting ready to watch the 97th Rose Bowl football game, which features the University of Wisconsin playing Texas Christian University. I'm a Wisconsin alum, so I have a vested interest in the game and its outcome.

The Rose Bowl still has magic for me. As an athletic and, by extension, fan goal, the game has an almost magnetic pull. Its tradition, including the Tournament of Roses Parade (the elephant float captures the parade's mood), retains an allure no other college bowl can match. The setting, as both Wisconsin and TCU coaches noted this week in an LA Times story, can be mesmerizing. Players never forget performing in front of 100,000 fans and a national TV audience. The Rose Bowl is big time; only Notre Dame, when they're good, can deliver the same impact. (It's one reason why college football is better off when ND has a strong squad.)

In contrast, the so-called "national championship" and other BCS games seem invented events designed to generate income, pacify influential sports commentators, and satisfy incorrigible university boosters.

This is the fourth Rose Bowl for Wisconsin since I completed my undergraduate studies there. I still own a Badger red sweatshirt with a discrete, one-rose "Wisconsin -- 1994 Rose Bowl Champions" logo on it. I'll have bratwurst ready for this afternoon's action. (Sorry, no beer today.) I still feel the pull of Pasadena setting, the romantic sundown, the excitement and glamor of the great game. As a fan, I worry, because TCU is fast, favored, and unknown to me.

The Rose Bowl has a more subliminal meaning as well. It symbolizes a sense of completion and success, of a journey from charming farmland to enchanted gardens, from being bundled up to enjoying swimsuit sensuality. The feeling is a powerful one. It is enhanced by televised Rose Bowl games, which present snow covered mountains, gleaming skies, and people looking happy and comfortable. Californians I know somewhat resent the Rose Bowl for that image, which they consider misleading and the generator of delusional transplants to the region.

I've had personal experience with both sides of that proposition. I appreciate the practical value of the "sensible" perspective. However, only a sourpuss would categorically reject the Rose Bowl's opportunity for brief enchantment. It's as if one should stop dreaming, having glorious ambitions, or thinking big. It's like trying to deny the American urge to go "out West" (versus "back East"), or to stop the tides once one reaches the Pacific. The Rose Bowl's great message is that one is better off running for the roses, rather than running away from them.

Go Badgers!