LESSONS FROM TEMPE

by Thermocaster, The Meaningful Collateral

Like a lot of my friends who decided to go to college at Indiana University back in the mid-90's, I've had a rough decade or so when it comes to my alma mater's sport endeavors. The basketball program has been a running soap opera, experiencing more potholes than John Clayton's face without the TV makeup. And the football program...good lord. We got four years of Antwaan Randle El at quarterback, and that was a wonderful, magical time...or rather, it should've been. Unfortunately, we also got those same four years with Cam Cameron as head coach, so that pretty much screwed that up. The long-promised bowl game never materialized, and soon, an entire generation of IU alums (myself included) found themselves stuck in 2007, having given up hope that we'd ever make it to the promised land of a bowl.

Then, a miracle occurred - an inspired IU football team manages to win seven games, beat our in-state rival Purdue, and secure a spot in a New Year's Eve bowl in Tempe, Arizona! As soon as the matchup was announced, I secured my ticket, purchased airfare, reserved a hotel, and prepared to step into a brand new world, both for myself and for most IU fans under the age of 30 --- the bowl season.

It was a trip that's taken me a full week to recover from. Here's some of the lessons learned from Tempe, Arizona (and other locales).

1. Never let the result of the game influence your feelings on getting to a bowl game: In the biography of rock & roll star Neil Young, there's a quote from someone regarding the making of rock movies which goes something like, "Don't expect the finished movie to be any good. Get off on the trip of making it instead." Seems like sound advice. Granted, I might not have felt this way if the Hoosiers had pulled off an improbable victory against Oklahoma State in the Insight.com Bowl, but still. Bowl games in general are unpredictable (any comment, Mr. Tebow?), so it makes more sense to just enjoy the surroundings, rather than get all worked up about a loss. Now, that said...

2. Apparently, having an actual game plan is important in a bowl game: Indiana's first drive seemed to hold a lot of promise. They moved the ball well, penetrated Cowboys territory, and put a field goal on the board. At 3-0, the world was looking pretty good. Then, Oklahoma State's offense stepped on the field, and that was pretty much the ballgame.

What exactly WAS the plan for Indiana on defense, we may never know. All that we can be sure of is that they looked completely helpless out there. We made that running back from OSU look like Barry Sanders for the whole game, and the Cowboys passing attack was excellent as well. Offensively, the gears ground to a halt after the first drive, and the IU coaching staff seemed to have no idea how to alter its approach during the rest of the first half. The Hoosiers deserve some credit for putting things together again in the second half, but by then it was far too late.

3. The next time someone you know calls a January game in the Phoenix area a "warm-weather bowl", point at them and laugh: I think the game-time temperature for the Insight.com Bowl was about 65 degrees, which is perfectly fine football weather. However, that lasted about as long as IU's chances of victory. By the middle of the second quarter, the sun had gone down, the temperature had dropped to about 45, and a bitter wind was blowing into the stadium. Yes, the climate was warmer than it would've been back in the midwest. But this was hardly California or Florida-style winter.

4. As shocking as this sounds, people actually like to buy bowl-related merchandise: We got to the stadium about an hour before kickoff. Once we found our seats, Kooder and I went off in search of t-shirts --- Kooder wanted one to try and stave off the biting wind chill that was in our future, while I wanted a souvenir to show the grandkids the next time that IU gets a bowl bid. After walking around 3/4ths the circumferance of Sun Devil Stadium, we encountered exactly two souvenir stands, both near the entrance to the stadium --- and they were already sold out of most sizes by the time we got in line. Would it have hurt to maybe stock up a bit more on shirts? Or maybe even open another souvenir stand on the other side of the stadium? Granted, this wasn't as bad as the Orange Bowl running out of beer in the second quarter of the final Miami game there (true story), but still...it seems like quite an oversight.

5. If your team has a chance to lose by 16 points, be sure to bring a flask: Beer prices were at the normal absurd levels ($7.25 for a bottle of Bud Light), but that's the cost of doing business. The problem is, they cut off alcohol sales at the end of halftime! The hell is that? My team's getting clobbered by a bunch of Okies, and I have to deal with it while simultaneously re-achieving sobriety. There is no justice.

6. New Year's Eve on Mill Avenue is rather overrated: Even though we lost the game, I was looking forward to the rest of the evening, since our bowl game tickets also gave us free entry into the nationally famous Mill Avenue New Year's Eve block party. I didn't know much about it, other than that the party encompassed several city blocks, and there was likely to be alcohol and scantily clad women involved. We left the stadium and marched straight over to the block party, preparing to bring the new year in in style. What ensued could best be described as "Meh".

Perhaps we caught the block party on a bad night (which is unfortunate, since it only happens once a year), but the combination of temperatures in the upper 30's, an ever-strengthening wind, and a ridiculously large mass of people pretty much meant that you were going to wait forever at restaurants and bars, or freeze your ass off walking around trying to find one that didn't have as big of a line. Plus, the whole event smacked of county fair carnie...there was a whole block devoted to nothing but those silly games you can play at the county fair where you can win the ridiculously sized stuffed animals, another half-block devoted to a magic show, another half-block that had motocross riders doing jumps...you get the picture. Also, the "big, headlining" musical act that they'd scheduled for the main stage in Tempe Beach Park was...the Barenaked Ladies? What, were the Tragically Hip not available or something?

Plus, in a truly bizarre occurrence, they set the big fireworks display off at Midnight...eastern time. It was only 10 PM in Tempe. I still haven't figured that one out.

7. Never, ever book a flight on USAir. Ever: Most of you who travel by air regularly know what I'm talking about. For those that don't, let me just say that USAir is easily the worst airline on the planet right now. I would rather fly a Russian airline where all the pilots are 13-year old kids than step foot on a USAir jet again. The planes are always late, the flight attendants are generally surly, and their airport counter people are clueless. Coming back from the bowl game, my connecting went through Philadelphia, and it was so late getting there that I literally had to sprint all the way across the terminal to get to my plane in time --- and as most of my friends would tell you, I am not exactly in the best shape for sprinting. Then, that plane ended up being delayed for 30 minutes while they checked to see if they'd accidentally destroyed the front landing gear. Good times!