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Fiesta Bowl

A Great Party at the Fiesta

By Jim Buzinski and Cyd Zeigler Jr.
Outsports.com 

Other Fiesta Bowl Pages

l Fiesta Bowl photo gallery l Season Wrapup: Hats Off to the Buckeyes l Easier to Hate Ohio State

Notes from our most-excellent adventure to Tempe for the Fiesta Bowl. Oops, we mean the “Processed Corn Meal Salty, HighFat Snack Fiesta Bowl.”  

  ·  A big thanks to Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano, who is gay, for being a wonderful host, putting on a party the night before the game at his house, and giving us the grand tour of Sun Devil Stadium (the field, press box, etc.) during the first quarter of the game.  He knows how to make someone feel pretty cool and he has our votes. Also, the party would not have come off without the work of Giuliano’s friend Steven Vogel. 

  ·  It was great to see many Outsports readers at the party. Whether Miami fans, Ohio State fans or neutral, they were all cool. 

  ·  The Miami cheerleaders were a great part of the entertainment at the Mayor's party.  Some of the guys at the party got them to take their shirts off; the gay guys then lined up to sign the "straight" boys' chests.  Now there's a tale for the cheerleaders to tell ma back home. 

  ·  We had forgotten that Donna Shalala, ex-Clinton cabinet secretary, is the president of the University of Miami.  Shalala was born in Cleveland, surely raised a Buckeye fan.   

  ·  By chance we met Luis Gonzalez, the Arizona Diamondbacks star and posed for some pictures. What a terrific guy. He seemed genuinely interested in us and was incredibly patient as we tried to get the proper settings on our camera. 

  ·  Among the celebrities we saw along the sideline and in the press box area were Roger Clemens, ESPN's Lee Corso and former Ohio State great Archie Griffin. The mayor was most interested in spotting actor Matthew McConaughey, but he was nowhere to be found when we were on the field. 

  ·  The stadium was 80% to 85% Ohio State fans.  That surely had something to do with the outcome of the game.  At one point, some Miami players were trying to get the Miami fans to make some noise, but it was just a peep compared to the thunder that rained down from the stands when the Buckeye fans were riled up. 

  ·  There was a funny moment in the concourse prior to the game that showed the urban-suburban split between the two teams. A horde of farm-fresh, white-bread Ohio State fans parted like the Red Sea when a group of about six Hurricane fans strutted past shouting C-A-N-E-S! The Miami fans looked like extras from a rap video, with more jewelry than Zales; they were totally harmless but looked menacing enough for the Buckeye fans to keep their distance. We couldn't stop laughing.

  ·  Security at the game was the worst we've seen at a major event.  There was no one checking the contents of bags or pockets and no metal detectors.  Anyone could have waltzed into that stadium with a knife, gun, or worse, completely undetected. 

  ·  The Miami band performed during the pregame and about 15 yards to their left, the official Fiesta mascot, a giant smiling sun, was swaying to the beat. He obviously wasn’t supposed to be there, because a Fiesta official was furiously trying to wave the mascot off; after about three minutes of futility, the official stormed on to the field and dragged the sun off, still smiling. 

  ·  The commercialization of all aspects of life is so complete that we’ve become inured to it, though that doesn’t make it right. Of all the barrage of promos and commercial tie-ins during the game, the worst was the use of the U.S. military parachute team. We can understand the jumpers carrying the flags of the United State and of the two schools. But the flag of Subway? The flag of Tostitos? The flag of ABC Sports? Talk about an axis of evil. 

  ·  Spent part of the weekend matching up against Bill Konigsberg in XBox's NFL 2K3 video game.  Some thoughts:  1) it takes forever to learn how to execute running plays well; 2) X is tackle; Y is jump; 3) don't send Priest Holmes up the middle against the dime package; 4) yes, you can return to consecutive kickoffs for touchdowns; 5) Randy Moss is the greatest player in the game.

  ·  For those of you who said Ken Dorsey doesn't belong among our nominees for the Major Applewhite Cutest Quarterback Award, you have never stared into his blue eyes in the middle of a game.  He does. 

  ·  Leaving the stadium, we were immediately handed a bag of Tostitos with "Ohio State National Champions" printed on the bag.  We were left wondering what happens to the tens of thousands of "Miami National Champions" bags that were printed . . . 

  ·  We know what they do with the "Miami National Champions" T-shirts:  they get sold for half-price ($10, not a bad deal). 

  ·  The Ohio State fans certainly seemed to be the less football-savvy of the two groups.  At one point, near the goal line, a referee raised one hand to mark where the runner was down.  Thinking he was signaling a touchdown, the Buckeye fans began cheering wildly.  It wasn't until about five seconds, when the scoreboard failed to change, that they realized they hadn't yet scored the touchdown. 

  ·  The game, as everyone knows, was amazing. Double-overtime. An upset by a 12-point underdog. Comebacks. Controversy. Drama. This one had everything. Ohio State was a deserving winner over a mistake-prone Miami team. The Buckeyes did get a huge break on that awful pass interference call in overtime that kept them alive. We hate seeing games marred by bad calls. In the end, though, Miami has only itself to blame. 

  ·  Overheard walking back to our car: A drunk and loud Buckeye fan on his cell phone, agitated that ESPN’s Trev Alberts had the gall to pick Miami to win: “You can tell Trev Alberts he can suck Michael Johnson’s dick!”