St. Pete's Holiday Bowl
(June 4, 2008)
St. Pete's Holiday Bowl
(June 4, 2008)
On April 30, 2008, the NCAA approved St. Petersburg as the site for a new college bowl game to be played at Tropicana Field. The first game will be played on December 20, 2008 and feature representatives from the Big East Conference and Conference USA. The St. Petersburg Bowl, which will seek a corporate name, will be broadcast on ESPN2 at 6:30 p.m. ESPN owns and operates the game, an arrangement the network has with five other bowls. This is not the first time the city has hosted a bowl game. From 1957 to 1960, the Holiday Bowl was played in St. Petersburg.
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Championship Game had various names throughout the years. It has been called the Aluminium Bowl (Little Rock), Camellia Bowl (Sacramento), Apple Bowl (Seattle), Palm Bowl (McAllen, TX) and sometimes simply the Championship Bowl. For four years, it was called the Holiday Bowl and held in St. Petersburg. The games were played at Stewart Field, on the campus of St. Petersburg High School, and broadcast nationally on CBS.
Not to be confused with the blues musician, Frank "Muddy" Waters was the
longest tenured head coach in the history of Hillsdale College. He coached the
Dales from 1954 to 1973 and posted a 138-47-5 (.739) record.  Waters received
national attention when his 1955 team (9-0) was invited to play in the
Tangerine Bowl. Due to bowl committee's policy of excluding black players, the
invitation was turned down. In his last year at Hillsdale, the football field
was renamed Frank Waters Stadium in his honor.
Waters would go on to become the first head coach at Saginaw Valley State, posting a 24-26-2 record from 1975-79, and finished his coaching career with three years (1980-82) at Michigan Sate (10-23). |
Hillsdale College (10-0) was on a 34 game winning streak, and Frank "Muddy Waters" was named NAIA Coach of the Year, heading into the first Holiday Bowl. Kansas State Teachers College (10-0), a school that was renamed Pittsburg State in 1971, was also undefeated and no team had scored more than 14 points on the Gorillas. KSTC jumped to 20-0 lead after the first quarter. Early in the third quarter, the Dales had comeback to tie the game at 20-20. Each team would score again, however, Hillsdale missed the extra point and lost 27-26. KSTC was lead by Charles Norris with two touchdown runs and a pair of TD catches by Paul Creandell. Doug Maison tossed three TD passes for HC, twice hitting Walt Poe.
The 1958 game was another battle of undefeated teams with Arizona State College at Flagstaff (11-0), later known as Northern Arizona University, and Northeastern State (10-0). The Oakies of Northeastern State, the school is in Oklahoma, took a 19-7 lead. Lead by quarterback Ted Sorich, the Lumberjacks drove 92 yards late in the game to close the gap. The Arizona team never got the ball back and the Oakies won 19-13.
Lenior Rhyne (10-0) was the number one ranked team throughout the regular season, and were lead by NAIA Coach of the Year Clarence Stasavich, coming into the 1959 game. Texas A&I (11-1), later renamed Texas A&M-Kingsville, had posted four shutouts during the year and only allowed a total of 20 points in their last five games. Behind the running of game MVP Butch Pressley, and three TD passes from Jarrell Hayes, the Texas A&I Javelinas easily handled the Lenior-Rhyne Bears 20-7.
Lenior-Rhyne would return for the last Holiday Bowl and it is interesting how they got there. In the final minute of the NAIA Eastern Championship Game, the Bears scored to tie Northern Michigan 20-20. At the time, NAIA regulations used total yardage as a tie breaking procedure. Lenior-Rhyne had outgained Northern Michigan by 25 yards to get the nod. Their Holiday Bowl opponent, Humboldt State (11-0), were headed by NAIA Coach of the Year Phil Sarboe. The Lumberjacks lead until the final minute, until freshman Marion Kirby kicked the winning field goal. The 15-14 victory game Lenior-Rhyne its first and only championship.
The St. Petersburg Bowl, or whatever name the game ends up with, is not the first bowl game the city has hosted. You just have to go back almost fifty years to the last time.
