Guess where I got to spend my New Year's Eve?!
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In HOLLYWOOOOOOOOD!!
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That's right... our beloved TCU Horned Frogs gave us a great reason to travel to California for New Years to watch the Tournament of Roses (AKA: The Rose Bowl) in Pasadena, California on January 1, 2011!
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For those of you who don't understand why this was SUCH a HUGE deal for TCU, let me educate you...
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1. TCU is in the Mountain West Conference, (well, only for one more season, then we move to the Big East), thus we do not have an automatic qualifying bid for a BCS Bowl game. This means it is 100x (or more) harder for us to receive a bid to a BCS bowl. We have to play a PERFECT season to even be considered, while other teams with one or more losses will be given the same options as us, simply because they are from an AQ conference. We get criticized incessantly because of our strength of schedule (or lack thereof)... but it's a total catch 22 because nobody will ever know the potential of our team if they don't give us a chance to play with the "big boys". (I think the BCS is crap--- can you tell?) So this was, as Eminem would say, our "one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted"... it was our chance to prove our ability against a team that ESPN says is "legit".
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2. The teams to compete in the Rose Bowl are traditionally the conference champions from the Pac 10 and the Big 10. Well, this year the Pac 10 conference champion was Oregon, who was already scheduled to play in the National Championship against Auburn. In the Big 10, there was a 3-way-tie for Conference Champion between Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. Since Wisconsin was ranked the highest of the three, they automatically received a bid to play in the Rose Bowl. The question was... who will Wisconsin play? The wonderful people from the Rose Bowl turned to the rankings and decided to go with TCU since we were ranked #3, just under Oregon and Auburn, and just above #4 Wisconsin and #5 Stanford.
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That seems like a no-brainer pick, right? Well, not really... that was a pretty big gamble for the Rose Bowl for the following reasons...
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1. TCU is a tiny private school from Fort Worth, Texas. When I say tiny, I mean it-- we have about 8,500 undergrads... (That's roughly 2,100 kids per graduating class). I'd like to think that we are a household name in sports by now since we played in a BCS Bowl Game last year (the Fiesta Bowl), our baseball team made it to the final round before the championship in our first EVER appearance in the College World Series, AND we boast big name alumni such as Sammy Baugh, Davey O'Brien, Jim Swink, Bob Lilly, and LaDainian Tomlinson... but I'm a realist and I know that's not the case. Nationally, we have still yet to make a name for ourselves among those who are less educated in college sports.
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{and the reason that matters at all is because of this...}
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2. Some of the biggest concerns that the people from any Bowl Game are faced with when choosing the teams to play in their bowl are Ticket Sales and TV Ratings. They need to fill their venue, and people all over the nation need to CARE about who is playing so they will actually watch the game. If these things don't happen, the bowl doesn't make money. With TCU being such a small school, there were concerns about how many of our fans would travel to the game (proposing an issue with ticket sales) and how many people, nationally, would care about this match-up enough to watch the game at all (proposing an issue with TV Ratings) since TCU doesn't have the national following of a mega state-school like the University of Texas, for instance. (To see how INCREDIBLY well the ratings turned out, click here!)
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3. Stanford is in the Pac 10 conference and, although they weren't the champion of their conference, they were ranked #5 at the time. The Rose Bowl people could have EASILY stuck to the idea of the Rose Bowl being played by the best available Big 10 and Pac 10 opponents... but lucky for TCU, Stanford is a small private school also... and their national following is probably even worse than ours. Additionally, TCU had received a LOT of hype from all kinds of media outlets throughout the season (even from ESPN, who hates to give us any credit since we don't have a contract with them), and had even received some votes in the polls to be ranked #1.
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4. (This one isn't necessarily a reason that the Rose Bowl people picked TCU, but it sure did raise a lot of hype, and it's a great addition to my topic...) The President of "The" Ohio State University said the following about TCU toward the end of the season: "Well, I don't know enough about the X's and O's of college football....... I do know, having been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it's like murderer's row every week for these schools. We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day. So I think until a university runs through that gantlet that there's some reason to believe that they not be the best teams to be in the big ballgame." In response to this comical publicity stunt, TCU's Athletic Director, Chris Del Conte, said TCU would happily play Ohio State, "Anytime. Anyplace. Anywhere. Buckeyes against the Horned Frogs. Tee it up. Let's go." (To see the HILARIOUS and GENIUS way that a TCU alum responded to these comments after our Rose Bowl victory, click here!)
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Thus, the Rose Bowl people decided to take a gamble and pick TCU... hoping that the nation would take interest in this "Cinderella story" of a championship game.
{and, boy, did they choose the right team!}
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As you can see... it was exciting that TCU was even chosen to play in this game! It was as if the stars had to align just right to make this all possible.
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SO... {back to the main story}
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We flew to into San Diego, California (flights in to LA were outrageously overpriced due to high demand, so we took an alternate route) and rented a car (we got a super sweet Cadillac STS so we could look like ballers, haha). Our hotel was the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn located near Universal Studios in Hollywood. We stayed there because we had New Years plans at the W Hotel in Hollywood. After a day of touring Hollywood and Rodeo Drive (it was Eric's first time EVER to California, so we had to do all of the tourist-y things), we went back to the hotel to start getting ready for our NYE Extravaganza!! A large group of our friends had purchased "VIP" tickets to this NYE party at the W, but, long story short, the W Hotel oversold the tickets and when we arrived, there was a line about 3 hours long to get into the venue... IF we got in at all because they started implementing one-in-one-out at 10:30pm!!
{{{BOO!! HISS!!}}}
SO, we ended up bailing on the W and, for lack of other plans or desire to throw away any more money on a cover charge, went to a very "local" bar and grill called The Casting Office that Eric, Corbin and I had gone to for dinner earlier that same day! It had a pretty cool atmosphere, cheap drinks, no cover charge, flat screens galore, and, best of all, NO LINE!! We ended up having a BLAST!! The bar owner passed out NYE party hats, noise makers, and confetti poppers just before midnight... and we played with them obnoxiously as if we were all 12 again! haha! We actually ended up being very pleased with our last minute venue selection...
(OH, and the charge from the so called "VIP" tickets to the W party were refunded after a quick phone call to our credit card company requesting a charge dispute.)
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New Year's Day, however, was the MAIN EVENT:
THE ROSE BOWL!
One of the first things I remember thinking, that I continued thinking throughout the entire game, was "Wow. That is a LOT of red!" We were sporting our purple pride for SURE, but they had almost DOUBLE the amount of fans in the stands. Now, don't let the lopsided numbers fool you... this comparison might help put things in prospective:
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TCU has roughly 8,500 undergrads and roughly 75,000 living alumni.
TCU had about 35,000 fans at the game.
That's about 42%.
Wisconsin has roughly 45,000 undergrads and roughly 360,000 living alumni.
Wisconsin had about 65,000 fans at the game.
That's about 16%.
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Yeah... I'd say we traveled {pretty} well ;)
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Instead of recapping the whole rest of the game for you, I'll just say that it was a PERFECT day. I think the only day I've experienced that was BETTER than the Rose Bowl was my wedding day. Yeah-- that good.
aaaand, this YouTube highlight video can probably sum up the rest!
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FINAL SCORE:
TCU 21
Wisconsin 19
Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip... enjoy!
