Bowl Season: Las Vegas

I had Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl and crapped out again. I'm 1 for 4 so far, not too impressive. I take a little bit of comfort in the fact that Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel, who knows a lot more than I do, has picked every game wrong thus far. I didn't watch much of the game as the rout was on early but it was good to hear Mark May, a former Hog, doing color commentary.

The Maaco Bowl Las Vegas used to be the California Bowl, also known as the California Raisin Bowl, and was held in Fresno until 1991. There was also a Raisin Bowl in Fresno back in the '40s. While referring to these games as bowls has to do with the shape of the stadiums and nothing to do with crockery, I like it when the games are named for things you might actually put into bowls: fruit, flowers, etc. What are you going to put in a Maaco Bowl? Cans of spray paint? I had a friend in elementary school who came up with the idea of having the two worst teams in the country play in the Toilet Bowl.

I'm a sucker for lists and SI.com is doing its end of decade wrap up with bests and worsts of the past ten years. I highly recommend "The Decade in Sportsmanship": http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/magazine/specials/2000s/12/07/sportsmanship/index.html. The softball story gets me every time. Victory comes in many forms.

In response to Roppongi Moose's comment about Vernon Davis's site (http://www.vernondavis85.net/), I thought I would look into other well-regarded pro athlete Websites. Pro windsurfer Sean O'Brien created a top 25 list of his favorites at http://www.design.aus120.com/design/top-25-pro-athlete-websites/. His favorite is Rafael Nadal's (http://www.rafaelnadal.com/) while his least favorite is Roger Federer's (http://www.rogerfederer.com/).