The Road to South Florida Week 15
Dear Football Fans,
I write this email every week to send you “The Road to South Florida.”
The championships games have been played, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee met and everyone knows who is playing in which bowl. Rankings have been assigned. We know where the road to every bowl leads, but now, it is Thunder Road time.
Bruce Springsteen sang, “Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night,” and “we’ve got one last chance to make it real.”
“We’re riding out tonight to case the promised land,” to win that bowl, to end the season on a high note, for others, to make it to the “promised land,” the National Championship.
“You ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re alright” for those teams that aren’t in one of the big glory bowls, but nevertheless a bowl.
“Sit tight, take hold Thunder Road,” it’s officially Bowl Season.
After a glorious football season, with more twists and turns in the road than I can remember, the Kings of the Roads emerged (real college football royalty, not Roger Miller’s “Kings of the Road”), ready to gear up again for one, maybe two more times.
Clemson is number one after beating Miami 38-3 in ACC Championship Game.
Oklahoma dehorned TCU in the Big 12 Championship, 41-17 – they are number two.
How ‘bout them number three Dawgs? Georgia beat Auburn for the SEC Championship, biting the Auburn Tigers 28-7. The War Eagles, victorious over Alabama only one week before, had their feathers plucked. Sergio Alvarez Mena, here is Dawg love.
Alabama, the team that everyone but Alabama fans loves to hate, made it back to the promised land, chosen as the number four team in the country.
Ohio State conquered the 12-0 Wisconsin Badgers for the Big 10 Championship, 27-21, but the win couldn’t carry them into the red zone and into the Big Four.
Like the previous week, two of the top four teams fell from grace. Miami and Auburn lost and Georgia and Alabama are back in.
This past week I went to the National Football Foundation dinner in New York City, a grand, albeit lengthy event held once a year to honor college football’s finest, past and present. It’s black tie and very posh (did I mention it was long?).
The event coincided with incoming Orange Bowl President Sean Pittman’s wedding anniversary. He took advantage of the opportunity and planned a romantic two days with his wife Audra. He wrote a romantic itinerary to give her, complete with photos and maps. The first photo in the itinerary was the iconic “Love” sculpture in Manhattan.
If you saw Audra Pittman in the street, you would think she had been a model – tall and gorgeous. Under the cover of this book is impressive content. She ran track when she attended University of Connecticut and earned a Doctorate in art administration at FSU.
The plan was dinner Sunday night, breakfast Monday morning, trips to five antique stores that Audra loves so that Sean could buy her a gift at each one.
Sean, if you put this much attention to detail into your Orange Bowl Presidency you are going to be both memorable and effective. God is in the details. Some say so is the devil.
One piece of advice, don’t peak too early. You’ve only been married for eight years. What will you do for your 20th anniversary?
It’s lovely to see couples who enjoy being together.
Marcie Radakovich knew that her husband Dan wouldn’t be able to attend the ACC Championship game in Charlotte, NC last weekend. Dan is the Athletic Director of Clemson and a member of the CFP Selection Committee. He and his 12 compadres were otherwise occupied deciding the fate of several schools and determining who plays where and in which bowl.
Since real Dan couldn’t be there in the flesh, Marcie created “Paper Dan.”
“Paper Dan” rode with her to Charlotte and he went to the game. I texted her early in the day Saturday to see if she was having fun and if she had been taking “Paper Dan” everywhere with her. She wrote back, “not to the mall, he hates shopping.”
I’ve been laughing about that for days. This is not the forum to discuss or debate the pros and cons of a mate on a stick. Another time…
Real Dan and the other twelve members of the selection committee got it right and the cream rose to the top. The big fish are swimming in the small pond (how many clichés can I get into this paragraph?).
#1 Clemson meets #4 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl semifinal on January 1 and #2 Oklahoma plays #3 Georgia in the Rose Bowl on January 1. Watch your alcohol intake on New Year’s Eve so that you are fresh for these big matchups on New Year’s Day. The games are simply too exciting to be suffering from cocktail flu when you watch them.
The winner of each game will meet to play for the National Championship Title on January 8 in Atlanta at the Peach Bowl.
There was chatter all day on December 3 until the CFP decisions were announced about whether the number four slot would go to Ohio State or Alabama.
Alabama had been rebuked for their loss to Auburn the previous week and demoted to the number five position.
Ohio State, with their 10-2 record, beat #4 Wisconsin for the Big 10 Championship. Alabama was 11-1, didn’t play for the SEC Championship and some said they had a fairly cream puff schedule this season.
Nevertheless, Alabama made it back to the number four slot rather than Ohio State. Considering Alabama had been ranked the number one team in the nation almost every week of the season, it was the right call.
The Sugar Bowl this year will be a replay of last year’s National Championship Game. Clemson won.
Several years ago, on a Saturday night, I received a call from Dabo Swinney. I’d met him a few times, but in a “hello, nice to meet you” sort of way. He called during the last year when the Orange Bowl Committee really selected who played in the game.
The choice was between Clemson and Oregon. I was a member of the OBC Executive Committee and had some voice in the selection. I was leaning towards Oregon as something new and different. Remember, this was before Clemson was CLEMSON. Being a big city Miami girl and a member of the Gator nation, I thought they were some sleepy little school in South Carolina, even though they had played in our game before.
Clemson played in our game and have become The Beatles of College Football. Alabama is of course The Rolling Stones (“Sympathy for the Devil”).
Oklahoma is the Eagles (“Take it To the Limit”, “There’s Gonna Be a Heartache Tonight”) and Georgia is The Allman Brothers (“Whipping Post”).
Scott Frost, the UCF coach who in two years led his team from a 0-12 season to a 12-0 season, announced after the 62-55 win over Memphis that he would be returning to his home state Nebraska to become the Nebraska head coach. He is staying to coach his team in the Peach Bowl where they will take on Auburn on January 1. The guy is a class act.
Welcome to the Capital One Orange Bowl Hurricanes and Badgers. We are thrilled you will be here. This is UM’s 10th visit to the game and Wisconsin’s first.
There is no Bowl in the country that creates as great a player and fan experience as the Orange Bowl.
It’s not only Bowl season, it’s the holiday season.
I loathe Christmas music. My aversion to this treacly and maudlin type of music must have begun as a child when my mother played the Johnny Mathis Christmas album over and over. His rendition of “White Christmas” is sappy and cringe-worthy.
Whether you love or hate Christmas music, I highly recommend Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family,” pronounced “Fam- O-Lee.”
Don’t take it too literally or seriously, it’s just a song about an awkward, dysfunctional family gathering. Regardless of your background or where you’re from, you may see something of someone in your family in this song that Keen describes as “The Rocky Horror Show” of Christmas songs. My mom and dad were Northerners. We grew up in California, not Harlingen, Texas but I got it. I’ll bet a bunch of you will too.
I laugh and get sentimental at the same time, almost enough to miss Johnny Mathis and that stupid song.
It’s that time of year.
College football is a great spectator sport. Believe it or not, so is good lawyering. Last week I had the pleasure to watch two of my partners, Michael Zeliger from Palo Alto, California and Steve Caponi from Wilmington, Delaware in a mediation. I was able to view the proceedings like Simon Cowell or Randy Jackson and judge their performances. Observing good lawyering is not unlike watching a great game.
This may sound dorky (unless you are a lawyer or client) but watching good lawyers practice their craft is like watching a great game (like the Army-Navy game on Saturday, Army won by one point in the final seconds of the game, 14-13). There is a winner and a loser and style points matter.
Back to the National Football Foundation dinner. It was splendid.
There were 13 student athletes nominated for the Scholar-Athlete award. Micah Kiser from University of Virginia won the award - a student with a 3.9 GPA, he’s already working on his master’s degree. I saw him at the airport on the way home and I stopped and congratulated him. He grabbed my hand, called me “ma’am,” which I normally hate and thanked me with his impeccable manners. A great guy who will go far in life. So will the other scholar athletes.
Coach Steve Spurrier spoke for his class of three coach Hall of Fame coaches - he was actually really funny.
The best speech of the night was given by Peyton Manning, on behalf of the ten member College Football Hall of Fame class. He talked about his time at University of Tennessee, what he learned from his dad, NFL great Archie Manning, and his brother, Eli Manning.
Manning said something that has stayed with me - I’m paraphrasing, but the gist of it was “A strong person has not had an easy path.”
It’s the holidays. Whatever your path has been or will be, I hope you are at this moment travelling a road filled with family, friends, fun and football.
More on the Bowl matchups next week dear friends and sports fans.
Lee