College bowl crazy

J's World, by Jeremiah Bartz

It is the holiday season. A time of giving, a time of getting, a time of church-going, a time of practicing various religious and family traditions.

My religion is football and my own little tradition involves watching as many bowl games as I can handle.

The week before Christmas through the week after New Years is the college bowl period. College bowl games used to be on just Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Then games began to appear on the eves of each day. Then the eve's eves. And the eve's eve's eve's. Well you get the picture. Now it is non-stop. A week has turned into two, and now we have damn near an entire month to watch college bowl games. The college bowl season lasts longer than many relationships.

Could there be a connection actually? Maybe some relationships actually end, because the college bowl season lasts too long. My television has been on ESPN for almost two weeks now. It seems like every day there is a bowl game I can look forward too. And it doesn't even matter if the teams are good or even watchable, it is a bowl game. I even sat through most of Memphis and Texas State. Not Texas or Texas A&M, Texas State. The mighty Mean Green held my attention for almost two and a half quarters.

I have lived with my girlfriend for almost three months now, and for the first two months of that time she thought the only stations we could get were ESPN and MTV. If college bowl season is the reason why so many relationships in the countries go bust, this time of year could be the biggest test for ours. So far she has been fairly understanding, only lying down subtle hints that we do have more than two channels. Sometimes I do have to wrestle the remote away as she tries to turn ESPN News off in favor of a Cosby Show rerun after I head to the kitchen to find a bag of Doritos.

I think that she believes following the bowl season and the NFL playoffs, she will start to come home from work and find the television tuned to a station that is not airing sports.

Don't tell her that the Cubs start playing in March.