2002 Week 9
October 22, 2002
We just got past the third Saturday in October, which is known to some as "Sweetest Day" (I got Ma her favorite sweet, Bacardi).
But of course to the rest of us the third Saturday in October has become famous for one of the great rivalries.
So why in the world was Auburn playing in Gainesville instead of Knoxville? That UA/UT game is a great matchup, so it mystified me why the Tigers were taking on the Gators.
That Auburn/Florida game ended a bit oddly. Florida scored really late in the game to go up 30-23. I went to the kitchen for medicinal purposes during the time out. Auburn must have had a great kickoff return, because they were deep in Florida territory.
For some reason after Auburn was stopped on downs they cut away to the Notre Dame vs. Air Force game, so I never did find out who won. This TV network mistakes ranks right up there with that NFL debacle in 1968, the famous "Hilda" game.
One of the better matchups was Lou Holtz vs. (Nick) Satan's minions down in Death Valley. I've always said that LSU is like Dracula--they like to suck at night. And this time they sucked the life out of Lou's USC team.
I was kind of surprised not to see USC's matinee idol QB Carson Daly in the game. He's done a fine job at Southern Cal, especially considering he has to host that afternoon music show with all those girl bands like Insinkerator.
Carson is far from the first Pac-8 QB to have a career in both football and television. Mark Harmon got the trend going while playing QB at UCLA, with his appearance in a movie as HS football star and serial killer Al Bundy.
Also of note was last year's Oregon sensation Joey Heatherton Junior, who appeared on some of his mother's USO tours.
But the greatest West Coast QB/TV star had to be Stanford's John Elway, whose most noted role was as an amazing talking horse.
One of the big stories this year has been the success of tiny Bowling Green University in Ohio. They've had some big wins against major programs like Missouri and Kansas, and some are saying they deserve a spot in the BS Bowel system.
I'm going to come right out and say it: The BS Bowel system has really become a perversion of the original bowel system.
The first bowel football game actually was a pure accident. There was this rich guy named Wally who took a strong interest in young athletes. He'd show up in the locker rooms wearing a bright orange jacket and was always inviting the players to take trips to his vacation home.
One year he invited the players from Manhattan College to stop by his place in Miami over the holidays to show how to execute the fullback trap and how to use colonics to ensure a clean bowel. They took him up on the offer, as Boston was quite dreary in December.
When they got there he had set up a big football field in his back yard and had invited the local football team from the University of Miami. He wanted them to demonstrate blocking drills and pump fakes for him and his many friends.
The players said "we'd rather play ball". So Manhattan and Miami squared off on the gridiron, and played a spirited game, won by Miami 6-0.
After the game was over Wally invited the Manhattan guys to come over so he and his friends could console them. The Manhattan players, a bit suspicious about Wally's motives at this point, decided to take the bus back to Massachusetts.
Thanks to the color of Wally's blazer and his concern about the players' colonic health, the game was called the "Orange Bowel". After the excitement generated by that bowel game in Miami, other groups started their own bowel games and a tradition was born.
And, in honor of Wally, bowel game sponsors still show up in locker rooms wearing brightly-colored blazers that nobody outside of a Century 21 office would normally be seen wearing.
Wally, also known as Wladsziu, moved on to more famous blazers, with sequins and so forth. He never again took an interest in football, as he became famous more for his clothes, his musical ability, and his last name.
You see, Wally, the guy in the orange blazer who once was so interested in young athletes, became better known to the rest of us as the late and great pianist Liberace.
And now you know the rest of the story.