Arizona Bowl embodies what’s healthy about Tucson’s community

A night that was once miserable for Toledo became memorable.

A couple of hours after Toledo lost 16-15 to Wyoming in the Arizona Bowl at Arizona Stadium on a last-second field goal, the Rockets literally were grounded in Tucson.

Their charter flight was canceled because the plane experienced issues that forced the team to stay in Tucson for the night before flying out in the morning.

Toledo needed the support of the Arizona Bowl and its community partners to get through the night.

“The Westin La Paloma and Grayline Bus Lines were both very accommodating — those weren’t business or corporate decisions made by Joey Bradfield at the Westin and Carolyn Anderson at Grayline — partners of ours, neighbors of ours, community members of ours,” said Arizona Bowl chief operations officer Del Arvayo.

“On top of that, as a bowl, we had three of our dozen Toledo volunteer staff return to the hotel to support the team because that is what families do. And finally, the people behind the scenes, the football ops people that I talk to every day are really good people. Wyoming’s director of football operations (Nick Fulton) called me and said he heard the Toledo news and asked me for the Toledo’s director of operations (Andrew Terwilliger) number to call him and offer to help him make plans and arrangements for his team.”

Wyoming’s retiring head coach Craig Bohl, after completing his last game after a 10-year ride there, called the Arizona Bowl “top shelf” in comparison to other bowl games he has experienced.

Bohl was part of Nebraska’s program as a graduate assistant under Tom Osborne when the Cornhuskers played in the Orange Bowl from 1981 to 1983.

He was Duke’s defensive coordinator and linebacker coach when the Blue Devils played in the 1994 Hall of Fame Bowl.

Bohl then rejoined Osborne at Nebraska and was the defensive coordinator and linebacker coach from 1995 to 2002. He coached for two Cornhusker teams that won the national title in the 1996 Orange Bowl and the 1998 Orange Bowl.

He then coached under Frank Solich against Arizona in the 1998 Holiday Bowl before being with the Cornhuskers in the 2000 Fiesta Bowl, 2000 Alamo Bowl, 2002 Rose Bowl and 2002 Independence Bowl.

Bohl coached North Dakota State from 2003 to 2013 and led the Bison to three FCS national championships.

After becoming the head coach at Wyoming in 2014, he coached the Cowboys to the Poinsettia Bowl in 2016, Famous Potato Idaho Bowl in 2017 and 2021, and the Arizona Bowl in 2019, 2022 and 2023.

That’s 17 bowl experiences in his 43 years of coaching — 14 other than the Arizona Bowl — and Bohl rates Tucson’s game among the best.

“Big thanks to the Arizona Bowl. First class. I appreciate the city of Tucson how you embraced what a bowl should really mean,” Bohl said on Saturday night. “And like I said, I’ve coached a bunch of bowl games all around the country, just top shelf, and that’s not coach speak, that’s speaking from my heart.

“So, I want to say thanks for the invitation. You staged a great game with two really good opponents.”

Difficult to argue against Bohl’s “top shelf” comment.

The Arizona Bowl is in its ninth year of existence after staging the inaugural game in 2015 between two Mountain West Conference teams (Colorado State and Nevada) on a frigid night with the temperature in the 40’s.

A crowd of 20,425 showed up.

The game has averaged 30,434 in the six games since that fans have attended (the 2020 game between Ball State and San Jose State did not have fans because of COVID-19 restrictions).

The 30,428 in attendance on Saturday tops 17 other bowl games this year (see chart below).

“I’m just so happy about Tucson and Southern Arizona because this is about bringing the community together,” Arizona Bowl chairman of the board Ali Farhang said. “So much of college athletics is transactional now. This is about engagement. This is about our community coming together and showing the best of us.

“Tucson — Southern Arizona — you did a great job. Great crowd. Great people. Hotels filled. Restaurants filled. It’s about us, for us.”

About 100 community sponsors and volunteers stood on a platform posing for a photo behind Farhang who are called Arizona Bowl’s “blue blazers,” wearing blue sports coats.

Farhang and other members of the executive board wore red sports coats.

One of the “red blazers” is Kym Adair, one of two female executive directors leading a bowl. The other is Missy Setters of the Independence Bowl which is played in Shreveport, La. 

.@theARIZONABOWL chairman of the board (Ali Farhang) @alibomaye32 discusses how the game since its inception has evolved into one of the most exciting and community driven of all bowl games. The attendance for tonight’s Toledo-Wyoming game was 30,428, up from last year’s 27,691… pic.twitter.com/Fi6PaQvD3X

— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) December 31, 2023

Adair is widely respected through the state with her background growing up in Scottsdale in a sports-crazed family (her uncle was the Minnesota Vikings mascot at one time). She earned a degree in political science from NAU and is highly successful at negotiating contracts.

In her time with the Arizona Bowl since its inception almost 10 years ago, she has struck deals with numerous professional sports organizations, namely the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets of the NBA along with the Arizona Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche of the NHL. She has also handled sports marketing deals with Arizona State and Arizona. 

A person of such integrity and value is indicative of how the Arizona Bowl is operated — with hard work and class.

The best news is that kind of brand with the bowl is growing.

“I think we keep refining and doing better every year,” Adair said. “Our biggest thing is we want Tucson to embrace this game as their own and show up and show the whole world what we are about. It’s been great. We’ve had a great, great commitment from the community. It’s been wonderful.”

.@theARIZONABOWL executive director Kym Adair talks about the growth and entertainment value of the game from the inaugural event in 2015 to now. The last-second FG win by Wyoming over Toledo follows three overtimes in the previous seven years. pic.twitter.com/LoRLiYiH4U

— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) December 31, 2023

Adair added that support for the game’s operation has grown to the point that the blue-blazer group of community volunteers has capped at 100.

“We have a waiting list of people who want to be involved and be on our blue-blazer squad,” Adair said. “That’s how we always envisioned it. We want people to be a part of this and know how special it is and really want to join us in everything that we’re doing.”

Another element working in the Arizona Bowl’s favor — other than the weather routinely including temperature in the 60’s and 70’s in the afternoon kickoffs — is the competitive nature of the games.

Saturday’s game was won by Wyoming on a 24-yard field goal by John Hoyland as time expired.

Last year’s game ended with Ohio’s 30-27 win over Wyoming in overtime, one of three games to finish in overtime in the bowl’s existence. Four of the eight games have been decided by six points or less.

“I couldn’t be happier about the game and how it ended but about what it means for all of us,” said Farhang, who embodies the community spirit of the bowl with all that he does.

.@wyo_football wins the 2023 @theARIZONABOWL championship 16-15 over Toledo on a 24-yard FG by John Hoyland as time expired. https://t.co/Guyr6ODyuA pic.twitter.com/GAGDrhROyv

— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) December 31, 2023

In recent years, he was highlighted as part of AllSportsTucson.com’s “Tucson Treasures” series because of his community work with his law firm Farhang & Medcoff, founder of the Arizona Bowl, minority owner of the Tucson Sugar Skulls, high school football coaching, sports radio commentating alongside Justin Spears on “Spears and Ali” on ESPN Radio in Tucson and his various forms of volunteering including serving as a voluntary legal representative of the Tucson Boys & Girls Club.

With a person like that leading the way, it’s no wonder why the Arizona Bowl is thriving.

Keep in mind that Arizona has never played in the game — unlike the scenario of the Fiesta Bowl benefitting from Arizona State’s numerous appearances at the outset of that game — and the Arizona Bowl still has five games with at least 30,000 in attendance in games featuring Group of Five programs.

The Rockets finally took off Sunday morning back to Toledo with fond memories of what Bohl called a “top shelf” bowl.

Toledo lost the game. But it felt like winners, just like Wyoming, leaving Tucson and people like Farhang, Adair, Arvayo, the blue blazers, red blazers and people of this community.

Thank you, Arizona Bowl.

2023 BOWL ATTENDANCE

FOLLOW @JAVIERJMORALES ON TWITTER!

ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.