What Does the World Need Now?

Jackie DeShannon (channeling Burt Bacharach) eloquently argued in 1965 that the answer to that question was (and presumably is), "Love, sweet love."

Tossing aside any alleged need for mountains, cornfields, wheatfields, and other things presumably advocated by various factions, she comes back repeatedly to Love, and, more specifically, Sweet Love.

Whatever one might think of her/Bacharach's argument (which made it to #2 on the charts at the time), I trust that absolutely no one would say that the need is for another college bowl game. But that is what Tucson wants to foist upon us.

Arizona athletic Greg Byrne confirmed to the Star that there have been discussions about bringing a bowl game back to Tucson, but said it’s far from a done deal. 

“We are aware of conversations,” Byrne told the Star. “Nothing has been decided, but we obviously want to try to promote Tucson and the state of Arizona as much as we possibly can.”

Tucson had a bowl for ten years or so late in the last century. It started out as the Copper Bowl, and then went under a variety of aliases before moving to Phoenix, where it's treated as the disreputable cousin of the Fiesta Bowl and continues to change its name periodically (I have no idea what it currently calls itself).

I'm not much of a fan of Tucson, as I have no doubt mentioned a time or two in the past. Danny White, the former ASU QB, has often said that when he has to drive through Tucson, he takes a big breath just before getting there, so he won't have to breath any of their air. I think that might be taking it a bit far, but I'm not far behind Danny in my feelings.

That said, Tucson would probably not be any worse a bowl venue than Shreveport or some other places. But we come back to the recurring question -- Why?

If there is to be such a bowl game, it will match teams from the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA. No doubt this is in response to hundreds of thousands of people signing an online petition demanding such an inter-conference showdown.

How about this, Tucson? Instead of another bowl game, give us some Love. Preferably Sweet Love.