Freedom Dialing for Dollars

A day in the life of Don Andersen or Do You Really Want to be a Bowl Director? or How Fresno State Wound Up in the Freedom Bowl:

“Going into Saturday,” Andersen is saying, “the three most likely candidates we had were Utah, Wisconsin and Fresno State, pretty much in that order.

“Well, Utah is down, 31-0, in the third quarter, and I’m getting the account over the phone from Jim Murray, one of the members of our selection committee who’s at the game in Salt Lake City. I’m at Dyche Stadium in Evanston, watching Northwestern beat up on Wisconsin--and that’s a long way to go to watch any Northwestern football game.

“Northwestern is dominating the first quarter. Northwestern doesn’t know what ‘dominate’ means, but they’re up, 14-0, and their quarterback completes his first eight passes, and I’m saying to myself, ‘Lord, what have I done?’

“But Wisconsin rallies and is back to within two points when it fumbles at the Northwestern 27 with 47 seconds left. If Wisconsin kicks a field goal, we make them an invitation then and there and maybe we get USC-Wisconsin, which is a great game, with so many historical overtones. . . .

“Wisconsin is already in field-goal range; all it has to do is run a couple plays up the middle and kick it. But they fumble on first down at the 27.

“After the game, I go to the locker room to console (Wisconsin Coach) Barry Alvarez and then I’m off to O’Hare Airport to catch a flight back home. By then, Jim is back in his hotel room, watching the Fresno State-San Diego State game, so I call him from the airport, and he gives me a play-by-play account of the last three minutes--with Fresno scoring with 14 seconds to go and San Diego State almost scoring on the last play of the game.

“So now Fresno wins to go 7-4, and I call Tom Hansen, the Pac-10 commissioner, to report that we are probably going to invite Fresno. We automatically get the Pac-10’s third-place team, and we’re still hoping for USC.

“As I’m flying home, I call Rob Halvaks (Andersen’s former assistant) at his home, where he’s watching the USC-UCLA game, for a report. And I call Gail Pederson, our new associate director, who’s calling press boxes to keep tabs on the Arizona-Arizona State game. Arizona’s ahead in the fourth quarter, 6-0, and if that holds, Arizona finishes third, and we get Arizona. And if you’re going to have Arizona in your game, you better get another team in there that’s going to bring some fans. Like Fresno.

“I’m over Omaha now, and I get (Fresno Athletic Director) Gary Cunningham on the phone and make him the invitation. We land Fresno at 8 o’clock. By the time I get into Ontario Airport, Arizona State’s ahead, 7-6. If Arizona loses, USC and Washington State are tied for third and we get USC.

“With four minutes to go, Arizona tries a 57-yard field goal that sails wide--at which time I crossed over three lanes of traffic.”

By the time Andersen regained his senses, and control of his automobile, USC and Fresno State were bound for Freedom Bowl IX, barring the immense unlikelihood of not only a Trojan victory over Notre Dame this weekend but an enormous Trojan victory, which then might be enough to invite interest from the Blockbuster Bowl.

USC has been the object of Freedom Bowl fantasies since the game gave birth in 1984. For nine years, USC has been the Holy Grail, the white whale, the golden fleece--turnstile salvation in a three-letter word.

USC-anybody is a virtual guarantee of 55,000 in attendance, paid not paper, and a six-figure profit for a bowl still whittling away at a $1 million debt. And Fresno, with its Red Wave army of ready-to-haul Winnebagos and Country Squires, adds 20,000 frenzied hotel/restaurant/concession consumers to any mix.

But, oh, the possibilities . . .

USC-Wisconsin--30 years after USC 42, Wisconsin 37, in perhaps the greatest Rose Bowl of them all.

USC-Kansas--11 years after the Jayhawks last materialized in a bowl game, four years after the Jayhawks finished 1-10 and KU football was left for dead.

USC-UCLA--five weeks after UCLA 38, USC 37, an instant classic that had Bruin Athletic Director Peter Dalis musing in the Rose Bowl press box about a rematch in the Freedom Bowl.

USC-UCLA (The Sequel) would have pushed the Freedom Bowl into previously unimaginable sellout territory, but Andersen claims the concept never dawned on him until after the fact.

“The idea, certainly, was too late in coming,” he says. “We’d already invited Fresno State before the USC-UCLA game was over, and the first inkling of UCLA’s interest were the comments made by Peter Dalis to writers after the game.”

Andersen stands by his men, the 7-4 Bulldogs of Fresno. Kansas is also 7-4 but has lost three in a row, including Saturday’s upset by 3-8 Missouri. UCLA, at 6-5, finished eighth in the Pac-10.

Fresno, meanwhile, is coming off a scintillating 45-41 victory over San Diego State, can tie for the WAC championship by beating UTEP Saturday and leads the nation in scoring, averaging 41 points a game.

“They’re also giving up 33 points a game,” Andersen adds with enthusiasm. “A 50-48 final would be just fine with me.”

In case anyone continues to wonder, this is why Fresno left the Big West for the WAC last summer. Win the Big West, you play Bowling Green in the Las Vegas Bowl for $125,000. Go 11-1 in the Big West, as Cal State Fullerton did in 1984, and you go nowhere.

That year, the Freedom Bowl’s first, the invitations went to Texas and Iowa.

“I wasn’t there, so I don’t know all the circumstances or the outside pressures,” Andersen says, “but I think I would have wanted Fullerton in that game. It just seems logical to me, in your first year, to get the team that would draw the most fans.

“Texas brought 800 people to that Freedom Bowl, and the game wound up losing $400,000. Fresno’s going to bring us 20,000. You want teams that are going to be excited to be in your game--the Colorado States, the Tulsas, the Fresnos.”

And what about USC, looking at a matchup of something less than Rose--or Aloha--Bowl standards?

“Before the fact, the Pac-10 in general and USC in particular were hoping to play someone from a major conference,” Andersen says. “But there hasn’t been a word since.”

Why do you suppose?

“Maybe,” Andersen surmises, “because they lost.”