Six key figures in UA bowl history
and where they are now
- Dave Liggins
- , MVP of 1979 Fiesta Bowl with two interceptions against Pitt. After coaching at Kansas and Bowling Green, he returned to his Ohio home and has worked in the Boys Village center. He had a kidney transplant a year ago.
- Kyle Jan
- , 1992 Hancock Bowl. Jan, a tight end, who helped Arizona win the team talent “competition” against Baylor with a spot-on and hilarious imitation of UA coach Dick
- Tomey
- , is assistant vice-president of JP Morgan Chase, a mortgage firm in Phoenix.
- Paul Stamer
- , 1994 Fiesta Bowl. Stamer, an offensive tackle whose block opened a hole through which Chuck Levy ran 68 yards for a touchdown in a 29-0 victory over Miami, is a physician’s assistant in Tucson, specializing in cardiology and sleep disorders.
- Jeff Valder
- , 1986 Aloha Bowl. He kicked a 52-yard field goal in a 30-21 victory over North Carolina. He is now president of HKL Holdings, a Phoenix real estate firm.
- Jim Birmingham
- , 1985 Sun Bowl. A starting defensive lineman and four-year letterman, 1983-86, Birmingham made seven tackles in a 13-13 tie against Georgia. Birmingham is president of Seacrest Developers, a contractor in Orange County, Calif.
- DaShon Polk
- , 1998 Holiday Bowl. A starting linebacker from 1997-99, Polk, who made seven tackles in a victory over Nebraska, has become a child-care advocate and opened the Cherish Children Learning Academy in Houston.
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Four forgotten items from the 1979 Fiesta Bowl
1 Pitt coach Jackie Sherrill wore a yellow coat and tie on the sideline. He matched coat colors with the Fiesta Bowl committee.
2 Pitt’s starting quarterback was freshman Dan Marino. He wore a thin black mustache that made him look like something out of the movie “Boogie Nights.”
3 Arizona’s coaches and cheerleaders wore navy blue colors, but the team wore red jerseys and red helmets.
4 The UA’s place-kicker, Jim Grossman, used a straight-on approach with shoelaces tying the top of his right foot back for a flat kicking surface.
Three reasons why Arizona’s first-ever bowl game, 1921, remains memorable
1 The opponent was Centre College of Danville, Ky., whose nickname was “Praying Colonels.” Today, the Division III school goes simply by “Colonels.”
2 Seven years later, in 1928, Centre College hired Boise Potthoff as its head coach. No, Potthoff wasn’t from Idaho. He became a professional boxer who lived in Missouri.
3 The Praying Colonels were prohibitive favorites over Pop McKale’s 7-1 Wildcats — even though the UA had won games by scores of 110-0 and 84-13 that season — that Centre beat Arizona 38-0 and finished the season outscoring its opponents 314-6.
Three UA coaches who exited Tucson
after bowl games
1 Miles Casteel, 1949 Salad Bowl. Nineteen days after losing 14-13 to Drake at Phoenix’s Montgomery Stadium, Casteel was asked to resign even thought he had eight consecutive winning seasons and had never lost to ASU. Newspapers reported that the Board of Regents were unhappy with Casteel because he was divorced and had been dating a divorcee.
2 Darrell Mudra, 1968 Sun Bowl. UA president Richard Harvill attended pre-game festivities in El Paso, but did not stay for the game. He later told this newspaper it was a message that he didn’t support Mudra, who was 11-9-1 in two UA seasons. Mudra and Harvill clashed frequently over academic entrance requirements.
3 Larry Smith, 1986 Aloha Bowl. USC contacted Smith about replacing fired head coach Ted Tollner before Arizona traveled to Honolulu. Smith left Hawaii on Christmas night and met with UA athletic director Cedric Dempsey a day later in Tucson, weeping while telling Dempsey he enjoyed coaching the Wildcats but couldn’t turn down the opportunity at USC. He accepted the USC job on Jan. 2, 1987.
Four reasons bowl games have time for fun
1 At the 1992 John Hancock Sun Bowl in El Paso, teams from Baylor and Arizona participated in the Sheriff’s Posse Dinner. The teams combined to consume 350 pounds of brisket, 250 pounds of sausage, 300 pounds of beans, 300 pounds of potato salad, 150 pounds of apple sauce and 50 gallons of iced tea. Fittingly, the feast was prepared by “Blimp Catering.”
2 At the 1985 Sun Bowl in El Paso, the Arizona football team and coaches took buses across the border, into Juarez, where they watched bullfighting. Vendors sold tequila by the glass. The Wildcats were escorted to and from buses by armed Mexican security guards.
3 During a pep rally at the San Diego Naval Station at the 1998 Holiday Bowl, Wilma the Wildcat tumbled off the pier, banged her head against a ship and disappeared into the water. Security personnel threw a life preserver to the UA mascot, who was rescued without major injuries.
4 At the 2009 Holiday Bowl, Arizona spent eight days in San Diego, in an ocean-side hotel, including Christmas Day. The Wildcats frequented the Gaslamp Quarter night life. After getting stomped 33-0 by Nebraska, head coach Mike Stoops conceded that too much fun and too much time in San Diego took away his team’s hard edge.
Two best coaching jobs
in a bowl game
1 Rich Ellerson, 1998 Holiday Bowl. Arizona’s defensive coordinator designed a defense to stop Nebraska’s running game, creating new assignments for linebackers Scooter Sprotte and DaShon Polk. It worked. The Huskers ran 34 times for only 87 yards in Arizona’s 23-20 victory.
2 Larry MacDuff, 1994 Freedom Bowl. Arizona’s defensive coordinator, using the hybrid “Desert Swarm” alignment, limited Utah to 75 total yards, which remains a school-record low in UA history. Alas, the Utes won 16-13 by virtue of a 72-yard kickoff return late in the fourth quarter.
The most familiar voices
at UA bowl games
1 Hall of Famer Lindsey Nelson and Frank Gifford were the broadcast team at the 1968 Sun Bowl.
2 Al Michaels worked the UA’s 1986 Aloha Bowl.
3 Keith Jackson called the UA’s 1990 Aloha Bowl.
4 At the 1990 Aloha Bowl, Bruno Mars — then 5 years old and dressed like Elvis — sang a Christmas song at midfield during halftime.
Best quote from a UA bowl game
At the half, we had controlled the game, but then the guys must have started thinking about bikinis.
— UA head coach Larry Smith after Arizona’s 30-0 lead was diminished to a final score of 30-21 against North Carolina at the 1986 Aloha Bowl
Three telling financial figures
from UA bowl games
1 At the 1949 Salad Bowl, UA football players signed a petition saying they wouldn’t play unless $10,000 would be paid to a children’s charity. (It was).
2 In the 1968 Sun Bowl, Arizona was paid $75,000. The Wildcats were paid $552,000 at the Sun Bowl and in 1972, the UA received a $900,000 payout at the Sun Bowl.
3 At the inaugural Copper Bowl in 1989, a Texas breath-mint manufacturer pledged to give Tucson bowl administrators $250,000 to name the game “The Breathless Bowl.” Before the deal could be reached, the Breathless people backed out. Arizona drew just 37,237 for a 17-10 victory over North Carolina State, creating losses of about $200,000.
Three ways that bowl games spend excessively
1 At the 1992 John Hancock Bowl in El Paso, the UA chose to spend $25,000 to have a fleet of three buses available 24 hours a day.
2 At the 1998 Holiday Bowl, the sponsoring committee rented the famed Torrey Pines Golf Club’s clubhouse, bar and grill for a press conference and brunch with UA coach Dick Tomey and Nebraska coach Frank Solich.
3 At the 1985 Sun Bowl in El Paso, the sponsoring committee paid former NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw $8,000 to speak at a luncheon honoring Arizona and Georgia teams a day before the game.
Three ways bowl games
have changed
1 After Arizona beat ASU to end the 1990 regular season, Aloha Bowl executive director Marcia Cherner delivered a personally typewritten invitation to UA athletic director Cedric Dempsey in the Arizona locker room. (He accepted).
2 At the 1989 Copper Bowl, UA quarterback Ronald Veal climbed aboard a horse at a Tucson dude ranch — the first horse ride of his life — and trotted off into the landscape as a TBS film crew taped footage for a pre-game show.
3 At the 1979 Fiesta Bowl, six Pitt Panther players sat in lounge chairs around a Scottsdale swimming pool, all wearing cowboy hats, as ABC filmed its pre-game show.
Five forgettable Arizona bowl game moments
1 At the 1968 Sun Bowl, UA quarterback Bruce Lee threw six interceptions (the UA had eight, total). Auburn won 34-10.
2 At the 2009 Holiday Bowl, UA quarterback Nick Foles had the worst day of his Arizona career, completing just 9 of 30 passes for 48 yards in a 33-0 loss to Nebraska.
3 At the 1990 Aloha Bowl, Arizona freshman tackle Mike Ciasca, a Parade All-American from Sahuaro High School, tore his ACL in practice, an injury which ultimately led to the end of his career.
4 Before the 1992 Hancock Bowl in El Paso, Arizona’s first-year offensive coordinator Duane Akina installed a no-huddle offense and moved safety Heath Bray to a key wide receiver position. Arizona lost 20-15 and failed to score on four plays during a Baylor goal-line stand in the fourth quarter.
5 On the final play of his distinguished UA kicking career, in which he set a school record with 77 field goals, Max Zendejas missed a 39-yarder with 10 seconds remaining in a game against Georgia that ended in a 13-13 tie.
Five underrated Arizona bowl game performances
1 Linebacker Byron Evans made 23 tackles in a 1985 Sun Bowl tie against Georgia.
2 Quarterback Willie Tuitama completed 24 of 35 passes for 325 yards and three touchowns in a 2008 Las Vegas Bowl victory over BYU.
3 Relative unknown WR Olatide Ogunfiditimi caught a 37-yard touchdown pass to help beat North Carolina State 17-10 in the 1989 Copper Bowl, a night in which Arizona gained just 130 yards in total offense.
4 UA tailback Trung Canidate gained 101 tough yards in the second half — Arizona had zero yards rushing at halftime — in a 1998 Holiday Bowl comeback win over Nebraska.
5 In the 1997 Insight Bowl at Arizona Stadium, fifth-year senior quarterback Brady Batten was given the surprise starter’s job over freshman sensation Ortege Jenkins. Batten threw for just 89 yards, but Arizona scored all 20 of its points in a 20-14 victory under his command.
How the weather influenced UA bowl games
1 At the 1990 Aloha Bowl in Honolulu, a rainstorm in the three days leading up to the game deterred ticket sales. Only 14,185 attended what turned out to be a 28-0 Syracuse victory.
2 A wintry mix in Albuquerque, and a kickoff temperature of 47, kept the crowd at the 2012 Gildan New Mexico Bowl to 24,610, although it was probably closer to 15,000 in house.
3 At the 2008 Las Vegas Bowl, a freak snowstorm blew through Las Vegas three days before kickoff against BYU. Kickoff temperature was 43 degrees, and a capacity crowd of 40,047 attended.
4 Kickoff temperature at the 2013 AdvoCare V100 Bowl in Shreveport, La., was 36 degrees for an 11:30 a.m., start. Announced attendance was 36,917, which was about double the actual crowd on a sunny day.
The most famous play in UA bowl history
At the 1994 Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, UA tailback Chuck Levy took a handoff at the UA’s 32-yard line with the Wildcats leading 9-0.
He ran to the left, getting blocks from linemen Joe Smigiel, Paul Stamer and Eric Johnson, ducked under a Miami linebacker, and sprinted 68 yards for a touchdown to give Arizona a 16-0 lead. (It won 29-0).
Once Levy reached the end zone, he famously did a duck walk across the back of the end zone, drawing an unsportsmanlike penalty flag. Levy gained 142 yards and was named the Fiesta Bowl offensive MVP.
