Outside of the actual game and preparation, there are a lot of great NON-football things that players get rewarded with for going to a bowl game. Here is a quick list.
1. A Weeklong Vacation, all expenses paid* (all travel costs are covered to and from the Bowl Game site, plus a per diem for food, gifts, etc.). The real bonus here is that if you are married, the school pays for your wife (and kids) too. I got married four days after the Utah game to make sure that my wife would be with me in Vegas.
2. Goodie Bags from the school and gifts from the Bowl. When I went as a freshman in 2001 to the Liberty, our gifts were about 95 percent clothing, with a nice commemorative watch being the highlight.
At the three Vegas Bowls, things were much better. Coach Mendenhall believed that we earned the right to choose our gifts, so we were given a $ amount to spend on each player and were presented with a bunch of options from Nike, Ogio, Skullcandy, and then any ideas from DVD players to Xbox to whatever would fit in the budget.
- B/R Ticket Guide
The leadership council voted on how the money would be spent on what gifts. From the Bowl we got first year—iPod Nano; second year—GPS Device; third year—iTouch.
3. Entertainment in the city of the game site. In Vegas this was two trips to the Blue Man Group and one trip to KA—Cirque du Soleil. This is sponsored by the Bowl. We have a night at the ESPN Zone playing video games and eating dinner.
We have the Battle of the Bands and Outback Dinner, and then the day before the game we have a luncheon with both teams. One out of three times this was awesome.
The first year we had Lee Corso as our guest speaker, and he was a total jerk. He just kept building up Cal and ripping on BYU. The second year it was Lou Holtz, and he was AMAZING! If you didn’t like Lou before then, you would have after, even with that lisp.
Last year it was The Schmuck from Monday Night Football who does sideline stuff (just saw him last week and it gave me chills), and he was the most offensive person I have ever heard speak. I remember talking to President Samuelson afterwards and him saying he had to put his hand on Coach’s leg to make sure Coach didn’t end up on SportsCenter for the wrong reason.
4. Service opportunities. We have had great service opportunities set up by members in the area the last two years. From painting homes to playing with kids at the Boys and Girls Club, the most memorable part of the bowl for a lot of players is the service activities.
By Markell Staffieri
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