Despite the Trappings, This Game Is No Mickey Mouse Affair

For $550,000, plus 25% of the net profits, Colorado’s Bill McCartney and Tennessee’s Johnny Majors didn’t have to jump through hoops, but they did have to walk with chipmunks, talk with mice and shmooze with the rest of the frolicking Disney menagerie in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle Wednesday.

If you thought McCartney was embarrassed at the Orange Bowl, you should have seen him being escorted across the draw bridge by Chip--or was it Dale?--to huddle up with Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy while the cameras clicked away and the Disneyland band played on.

But when you’re putting on a new football event, and you cut a deal with Disneyland to sponsor, you get what they pay you for. Disneyland being Disneyland--the sappiest place on earth--that usually means enough schmaltz to choke a middle linebacker.

The place couldn’t hold a car wash without getting Tinker Bell to hot wax.

So it was under the shadow of Space Mountain that the world learned that Colorado and Tennessee would be playing on Aug. 26 at Anaheim Stadium in the inaugural Disneyland Pigskin Classic. Now there’s a name that just rolls off the tongue. Too bad Kickoff Classic was already taken, but, then, that’s why we’re here in the first place.

The Kickoff Classic used to be a fine way to do just that--kick off the college football season. The idea was to pick a date before any other openers were scheduled, match two teams with Top 10 aspirations and put on a good enough show to whet appetites for the feast ahead.

It worked, and from afar, the Orange County Sports Assn.--the same people who bring you the Freedom Bowl--wanted in on the action. If it plays in East Rutherford, N.J., why shouldn’t it play in Anaheim? What’s wrong with having two of these things? How about Kickoff Classic East and Kickoff Classic West? Or a Kickoff Classic for the Kickoff Classic?

Once the project was sold to the NCAA and Disneyland, the scramble was on. The Kickoff and Pigskin people immediately jostled for teams and for playing dates, waging a mini-bowl season in February. The object of the game: Bring in the best teams money can buy and be the first on the block to play with them.

On both counts, it appears Pigskin I won.

Aug. 25 was the first date allowed by the NCAA, but the Rams are playing an exhibition game at Anaheim Stadium that night. Monday the 27th begins an Angel homestand. So, the only window of opportunity was Sunday the 26th.

That beats the Not-Quite-The-Kickoff Classic by several days.

Moreover, on rankings alone, the Pigskin matchup beats the Kickoff pairing of USC and Syracuse, neither of which qualified for the postseason Top 5. Colorado, though, was No. 4 and Tennessee No. 5, with both teams sporting 11-1 records and boasting returning starters by the droves.

“On paper, I think it’s the best matchup,” said Rob Halvaks, assistant executive director of the Orange County Sports Assn. “Colorado played for the national championship last year and a lot of people thought Tennessee was building for this year. Their year was going to 1990. To go 11-1 and win the Cotton Bowl last season was a surprise.”

The Pigskinners, however, did have one big advantage. According to NCAA guidelines, these “special events” must 1) select a team from each of the seven major conferences once every seven years, and 2) not select a team that has appeared in the game during the past five years. That narrowed the Kickoff field considerably--it needed a Pac-10 team this time--while Pigskin I was able to poke around for whomever it wanted.

Tennessee wasn’t the first choice as foil for Colorado. Defending national champion Miami and third-ranked Florida State were initially asked, but both declined for fairly obvious reasons.

A Buff-kicking in late August is not the best way to go about contending for a national title.

So why did Tennessee volunteer?

Majors can come up with about 550,000 reasons.

“Naturally, most coaches will tell you their non-conference schedule is tough enough already,” Majors said. “And I admit, I was sitting around thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, if I get called, what am I going to do?’

“If I could’ve scheduled an extra game myself, I probably would not have chosen Colorado. But there are other areas you have to look after besides yourself.

“Your fans and your players are going to be excited playing in this game. The media, too. And it’s something that’s going to help our university. We have plans for $200,000 (of the guarantee) to be earmarked for a new on-campus library fund.”

So Majors, once invited, took the bucks and took the plunge.

“I consider myself a team player,” he said.

McCartney, meanwhile, holds Anaheim partly responsible for Colorado’s Big Eight championship in 1989. McCartney’s Buffaloes made trips to the Freedom Bowl in 1985 and 1988, and although they lost both games, what they gained in Southland recruiting helped formed the foundation of the current Colorado roster.

To name but a few, quarterback Darian Hagan (Los Angeles’ Locke High), All-America guard Joe Garten (Valencia High), tailback Eric Bienemy (Bishop Amat High) and tackle Mark Vander Poel (Chino High) were all souvenirs from those earlier trips West.

“It goes hand in hand,” McCartney said. “Those games gave us access to recruiting some of the best players in Southern California.”

And now, McCartney is coming back for more. Only this time, Disneyland is involved and we all know what that means.

Months of Mickey Mouse hyping a matchup that is anything but.