We always loved the annual holiday set-up. Around Thanksgiving we would get the Christmas boxes out of storage. Year after year our girls were eager to bring out all those familiar family treasures and hang them in the same places. We put up the household decorations, hung our string of red, green, and white outdoor lights along the roof edge out front; and by the middle of December, we had shopped for our perfect Noble Fir and festooned the tree. Yes, everyone loved the annual holiday set-up.
But no one loved the annual holiday clean-up. It felt like drudgery.
Eventually there emerged a new tradition, and we all loved it.
On New Year’s Day my wife and I and our three daughters got up at 8:00, huddled under a blanket, and passed around the platter of Pillsbury orange rolls while we watched and listened to Bob and Stephanie call the Rose Parade; and when the parade was over, it was time for football. The women in my life agreed to leave me alone, and they would even stock the fridge with my favorite binge food. In return, I would take down and box up all the household decorations and Christmas tree ornaments and put them in the holiday-stuff storage cabinet in the garage.
I took great care in undecorating, packing, organizing of the cupboard, removing the bare tree to the curb, vacuuming the living room, and pushing the furniture back in place — much of which was done during halftime, time-outs, penalties, and advertisements. And I took great pleasure in glutting on football from 10:00 to 10:00. My wife pitched in throughout the day; this Type-A girl of mine wanted to make sure that all the boxes were properly labeled. The family all drifted back in to watch the spectacular halftime show of the Orange Bowl, the last telecast of the day.
When I tucked my girls in for the night, I lingered a bit longer in our youngest daughter’s room, because her bedroom window faced the front of the house. She loved to fall asleep to the glow of the outdoor lights as they cast a soft kaleidoscope of color on the blinds. For that reason, we did not put the outdoor lights away quite yet. Like my daughter, they stayed up later.
For many years, our New Year’s Day tradition was special.
And then, it all went wrong.
You see, once upon time it was delicious to celebrate New Year’s Day, because the college bowl games on January One were meaningful and exciting. For starters, there were not as many bowl games. We did not have the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl or the Cheez-It Bowl (Really?) or the Belk Bowl (What’s a belk?). The Poulan Weed Eater Bowl just does not have the same dactylic resonance as the Gator Bowl or the Cotton Bowl. In recent years there have been as many as forty bowl games, as if you could find eighty teams worth watching.
No sir! Back then there were great matchups all day long, with all of the top ranked teams playing on New Year’s Day. It started at 10 AM in L.A. (1 PM Eastern) with the Gator Bowl in Florida and the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and the Cotton Bowl in Dallas were on the air around 11:00 (1 PM Central). Obviously two TV’s were necessary. At 1:00 came the “Granddaddy of the Them All,” the Rose Bowl. And just when you thought you could not take in any more pigskin pleasure, they returned you to the Orange Bowl at 5:00 (8:00 PM in Miami).
At the end of the day, you could argue – and they did — that many of the winners of the New Year’s Day games could have become Number One. The Sportswriters of America and United Press International each announced a national champion. If they disagreed, we had co-champions.
There was a great hue and cry that a committee should not pick the national champion, but that it should be determined on the field. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Enter the College Football Playoffs (CFP). It started with the two top ranked teams at the end of the regular season, and that soon expanded to four teams, the current format.
The problem is four-fold.
Number One. A committee still makes the big decision. In the first week of December, the CFP Select Committee names the four teams who will play for the national championship. At that precise moment we know that one of those four teams will be crowned national champion, and the other three will end up 2, 3, and 4.
Number Two. The arguing continues. Each year some strong teams are shut out of consideration for the national championship. When one of the four finalists plays a lousy game, the second guessing goes into overdrive. Did they belong there?
Number Three. The CFP is crazy making. The narrowing of the playing field has driven universities to spend enormous sums to find the right coach, and they are impatient with their coaches. This year a coach was dismissed with three years remaining on his contract, a contract which included a buyout. In this case, the university paid the coach twenty-one million dollars NOT to coach next year. TWENTY-ONE MILLION! DOLLARS! Sheesh!
Number Four. Many of the traditional bowl games have lost their relevance. When the championship was not decided until all the bowl games were played, many great teams had a shot right until the end. To be fair, this year’s champion – Alabama – would have ended up #1 under any selection method. They were just that good. But it is still a sad outcome when a great 5th or 6th ranked team plays in a great bowl game that has zero bearing on the championship race.
As a result of all this, my New Year’s Day tradition is much less exciting, and I want it back. I want a whole bunch of teams to be in the hunt right up to the last minute of the last game. I want to argue about who is Number One while putting away the Santa mobile, The Christmas mugs, and the old creche with the poor one-legged donkey.
Here are my recommendations:
- Move all the bowl games back to January One.
- Let the sportswriters decide. They know better.
- Pay the college football coach a teacher salary.
- Pay the teachers seven million a year.
Tidings from Tim 