New Year's Eve of A.D. 2009 included the annual Music City Bowl. In the plethora of NCAA football post-season bowl games, I've supported this one from its commencement. I'm as glad that Nashville has a bowl game as I am that San Antonio has the Alamo Bowl, Dallas the Cotton Bowl and Pasadena the Rose Bowl. Of course I'm glad that the post-season gridiron romp bears the title it does, one of the nicknames of the host city. (I doubt that "Athens Bowl" or "Bible Belt Buckle Bowl" would fly.)
This time around -- the eleventh -- the Music City Bowl was a special one. Our alma mater -- my wife's and mine -- played in it, spreading the icing on the cake of the Vanderbilt Commodores' first winning season since 1982! And just as I had longed to attend the Vandy-Vols game here back in mid-November, and then was glad I didn't due to terrible weather, so with the Bowl. IT was FRIGID in Nashville on New Years Eve!
Besides, I had to work, and clock-in was a half hour after kick-off. However, after a couple hours at work I chose to bring up a window on my computer terminal screen, to see if I could raise the ESPN televising of the game. No luck there, but I did surf into a website that informed me that the game was early in the final quarter, the score by quarter, how the scoring happened, and the latest play in the game. This site refreshed itself every 30 second, so I was able to sort of keep up with the game, even if not able to view it live.
At the start of this cyber-following of the Music City Bowl, the screen informed me that Vanderbilt was behind 13-14. But within minutes (real-time, not necessarily game-time) the 'Dores kicked a field goal to gain the lead, 16-14. Then then stopped Boston College's next drive, with so little time left that I knew that Vandy had won!
Thus, Vanderbilt not only played in a bowl game for the first time since 1982 but also won a bowl game since 1955! (I was a year old back then.)
Now, yours truly isn't really anything of a night owl. So I started the day of New Year's Eve planning nothing concerning staying up 'til midnight. (By contrast, in San Antonio I did stay up by attending a church "watch night" concert and prayer meeting.) However, after the 'Dores' won the bowl game I considered going somewhere after leaving work, to celebrate not so much the calendar change as the gridiron victory. Consider is all I did, getting into bed about an hour before midnight.
One final note re the Music City Bowl. I was glad that I didn't actually pay for a ticket and attend the game, first of all due to the chilly, blustery winter weather. A second reason for not going became evident when I viewed on-line photos of the game. The Commodore football players wore about the ugliest version of their uniform I've ever seen. That's one thing about VU; in the many years I've followed athletics at the Nashville campus, they keep changing the looks and colors of their uniforms. In the past some have been classy and attractive to the beholder. Not those the guys wore for the Music City Bowl. They were simply UGLY!
Oh, well, the Commodores won the game, and that's what counts. After all, a post-season bowl game isn't a beauty contest.
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