The First Three Bowl Games

By Jim Joanos

It is bowl time again. By the time you read this, the location and opponent for Florida State University’s post season bowl game will be known. This will be the forty-second bowl game that FSU has played in since resuming intercollegiate football in 1947. It will be the thirty-first consecutive season for the Seminoles that will have ended in a bowl game. The streak began following the 1982 season and is the longest in the nation.

Bowl games are special. I get pretty excited about them and look forward to them each year, probably more so than the average fan. That is because in the nineteen-forties when I first became a fan, it was a rare and special season when the Seminoles got invited to play in a bowl game. There were only a handful of bowl games and a team had to have a very successful season to get invited to play in one. Although, I was unable to attend the very early ones, because of the novelty that surrounded them, I remember especially well the excitement that surrounded them. FSU’s first three bowl game appearances are examples of how each of the bowl games are special.

FSU’s First Bowl Game: Cigar Bowl, Tampa, Florida, January 2, 1950, FSU 19 Wofford College 6. After forty-two years as a women’s college, Florida State again became coeducational in 1947 and resumed playing intercollegiate football. By its third season, FSU had become very successful among the teams in the small college category. At the end of the 1949 season, FSU’s team with a season record of eight wins and one loss was invited to play Wofford College in Tampa’s Cigar Bowl.

The pre-game festivities featured a giant Cigar Box from which emerged a beautiful queen. In the game the Seminoles emerged from a fledgling football program to one with a bright future. Before the 14,000 fans in attendance, FSU pummeled its opponent. In that effort, wingback Wyatt “Red” Parrish scored two touchdowns and Buddy Strauss gained 132 yards running to lead the Seminoles on offense. On defense, Strauss, who lined up as an end made numerous tackles and by penetrating into Wofford’s backfield regularly created chaos. Wofford had entered the game sporting an 11 and 0 record, and not having lost a game in over two years.

Although happy with the victory, FSU players were somewhat disappointed because instead of receiving fancy watches that they had been led to believe that they would receive for participation in the game, they instead got little plastic footballs upon which was stamped the name of the bowl. Fifty years later, in 2000, at a team reunion in Tallahassee, that disappointment was finally remedied when each remaining member of that team was presented with a “Cigar Bowl Champions” watch.

FSU’s Second Bowl Game: The Sun Bowl, El Paso, Texas, January 1, 1955, FSU 20 Texas Western (now known as University of Texas, El Paso) 47. In 1953, Tom Nugent had become FSU’s head coach. It was his job to lead FSU from the small college competition in which it had been competing into the higher, more competitive levels of college football. By his second season in Tallahassee, his team had posted an 8-3 regular season record which was good enough to get a bowl bid. FSU accepted the bid from El Paso’s Sun Bowl and was beaten by Texas Western. This was the bowl game that is best remembered for the good times that the team enjoyed before the game. They went out to El Paso for several days before the game and were entertained royally by the bowl committee. In addition, frequent trips over to Quarez, Mexico, some official and some unofficial, are still talked about by the “Nugent Boys” that participated in that game. This was the team that included two players, Lee Corso, and Buddy (Burt) Reynolds who have become familiar names around the country. One of the best stories about that game include one about Corso found dancing in a Mexican Cantina following the game although he had broken his leg during the game.

FSU’s Third Bowl Game: The Bluegrass Bowl, Louisville, Kentucky, December 13, 1958, FSU 6 Oklahoma A & M (now known as Oklahoma State) 15. Nugent’s last game as FSU’s head coach was the first and last, Bluegrass Bowl in Louisville, Kentucky, on December 13, 1958. FSU entered the game with a 7-3 regular season record which had included wins over Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Tennessee and Miami, as well as losses to Georgia Tech, Georgia, and Florida.

This should have been named “The Frigid Bowl.” In ten-degree weather with the wind blowing, about 7,000 fans were brave enough to go out and see FSU lose to Oklahoma A & M 15-6. Fans who attended, described the game among the coldest that they have ever attended.

The Bluegrass Bowl game was historic in that it was the first FSU football game ever to be viewed nationally on television. At least one FSU game had been on local television before, but this was the first one shown throughout the country. I watched it from a location in the Boston, Massachusetts, area where I was stationed in the Air Force. Another interesting fact about the game, was that Howard Cosell, who would later become a well-known television sports commentator worked the game. It is believed to have been his first nationwide experience in that category.

Many of the bowl games following those first three have been exciting and very interesting as well. I look forward to this year’s game and hope that we will all enjoy it.