The New Year’s Day Bowl Showcase

It’s the legal holiday for New Year’s Day on Monday and that means a feast of college football. I’m looking forward to the day like any college football fan, but there’s also no question that this day lacks the significance it once had. In my book The Last New Year’s, I chronicle the period 1976-1993, when January 1 (or January 2 in years like this), was the premier showcase of the sport. All the top teams were playing and the national championship was settled.

Every major bowl game is revisited in this 18-year period. Here’s just a sampling of topics covered…

*Did the 1983 Miami Hurricanes really deserve the national championship, or did voters overreact to their epic upset of #1 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl?
*Learn how the Fiesta Bowl crashed the New Year’s Party in 1981, permanently upsetting what had been a four-bowl monopoly of the Orange-Sugar-Rose-Cotton.
*Revisit moments like Alabama’s epic goal-line stand against Penn State in 1978, Joe Montana’s heroics at Notre Dame, Jimmy Johnson’s rise to glory at Miami and see how a populist upstart like 1976 Pitt or 1981 Clemson overthrew the establishment and won a national title.

The book is available on Amazon, it’s 116 pages and if you have a Kindle you can get it for $9.99 (a regular book is available for $12.95) and have your history background in place by the time the Rose Bowl kicks off. Grab a copy today and Happy New Year!