I was flabbergasted when I heard what they planned to do with Grand Daddy.

Now I'm not a big sports fan -- I like to go to see live games, but something about football on TV usually turns me off, and as for basketball well, I hate it, perhaps because I was never any good at it, even when I was tall.

But I am a big fan of tradition, which is why it peeves me to no end that the Rose Bowl this, and every three years, not only won't be on New Year's Day, but technically, won't be the Rose Bowl -- particularly when there was such an easier answer to the preceived problem.

How Things Were and The Alleged Problem

Seems almost every year there was this debate about which team was the best college team, with sports writers deciding. Well, there are lots of colleges and leagues and one likes to think that football is still a past time, not a career, for college students.

The Rose Bowl, traditionally, was a clash between the winner of the PAC 10 Conference and the Big 10 Conference. Every year it sold out -- indeed every year the Rose Bowl magically grew by a couple thousand seats.

Maybe it had ceased to be a big deal to USC or UCLA or Michigan or one of the schools that always was in it -- although damned if their students and alum didn't descend on Pasadena around New Years, the alum of the Big 10 always looking stupid in their shorts because (I guess) they assumed it doesn't get cold in Southern California. And for those of us who went to Berkeley or Stanford, well, it was always a kind of unspoken dream at the start of any season -- crushed perhaps when the team from "Backy Chawin' U" beat our boys 48-3 -- but still a dream.

But the bookies union lobbied and the powers that be decided there should be a game which determined with all the exactitude of an attempted field goal from the 48 yard line on a blustery day which collegiate team deserved to be dubbed "#1" in the Nation.

The Solution Implimented

The 2 teams deemed the best would play in a game. How they can decide which 2 are better than the 2000 others is beyond me, but that's what they decided.

Now for some reason they decided this games would be played on January 3 and that it would "replace" one of 3 bowl games on a regular basis.

Why This Sucks

It sucks because for those years when the Rose Bowl hosts these games the winners of the PAC 10 and Big 10, unless the best in the nation, won't get to go to the Rose Bowl, the traditional prize for -- forever.

And that isn't fair to the guys on those teams.

Especially when they could have just held this #1 Bowl a week after the regular Bowls, leaving the regular ones alone.

Anyway, Happy New Year.