What a rare occasion when the three most powerful people in the world are in America for meetings. For this week Pope Francis, President Obama, and Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife First Lady Peng Liyuan congregate on Washington, D.C. and New York City for talks that could shape the future of the world. First Pope Francis came calling after a triumphant visit to Cuba on the way, with his message of hope, peace, and compassion electrifying the crowds and knocking politics out of the news.
At the same time the Pope was landing in Washington, D.C., Chinese President Jinping and his wife were landing in Seattle on their way to our nation's capital, first for meetings with Bill Gates and prominent American industrialists. All three will be attending the United Nations General Assembly in NYC in what could be a historic gathering to adopt the Global Goals initiative to wipe out poverty and address sixteen other major issues over the next fifteen years.
This is such a historic gathering here in America it makes one want to break out in song.
If your school is selected to host ESPN’s “College GameDay”,
it’s like somebody scheduled a parade and everybody you know is going to be
there.
About two million people climb out of bed every Saturday morning
to watch the show and it almost never disappoints. It’s Army-Navy,
Kansas-Missouri
and in 2001, 2001, 2008 and 2009 it was Texas-Oklahoma in the Red River
Rivalry.
Eleven hours before Saturday’s Arizona-UCLA kickoff, GameDay
will be live on the UA mall.
“It’s cool,” said UA junior nose tackle Sani Fuimaono. “It’s
what I used to wake up to watch when I was in high school.”
GameDay goes beyond cool. What’s a good word? Nirvana. It’s got
to have a little music to it.
GameDay used to be snooty. It used to be Alabama-Auburn and
Nebraska-Notre Dame, and an excessive diet of Wolverines, Volunteers and
Buckeyes.
But over the last 15 years, GameDay has become monument to all
the people of college football. It has given us Harvard-Penn, Army-Navy,
Southern-Grambling and, believe it or not, North Dakota State-Incarnate Word.
The NDSU Bison hosted GameDay twice. That’s one more time than ArizonaState, whose lone appearance as a host
was in 2005. (The Sun Devils lost to No. 1 USC, 38-28).
“It’s gonna be big,” Arizona
coach Rich Rodriguez said Monday. “I’m tickled to death they are here.”
GameDay was once the center of all “East coast bias” in college
sports. Its first 24 locations were so far from the Pac-12 that when it finally
erected a stage for the November 1998 Oregon-at-UCLA
game — its first game at a Pac-12 venue — that the crew looked around Pasadena and realized
“hey, this is where they play the Rose Bowl!”
But until Pete Carroll turned USC into a powerhouse, GameDay
went 49 consecutive shows, from early 2001 to late 2004 — without a Pac-12
host.
All of that has changed. USC has since been host to 10 GameDay
shows; Oregon
eight.
Arizona
and Stanford have twice been hosts. No other Pac-12 school has had more than
one hosting role; WashingtonState and Cal
have none.
“Just to show off our campus and the city of Tucson; it’s all positive,” RichRod said.
ESPN won’t divulge the identity of GameDay’s much-anticipated
“guest picker” until Saturday.
In 2009, when Arizona
lost 44-41 to Oregon
in its Tucson GameDay debut, the guest picker was Olympic swimming gold
medalist Amanda Beard. She was underwhelming, to put it politely.
Perhaps this time GameDay will fly Arizona
alumnus Bob Baffert in from a California
race track. Or maybe Steve Kerr can squeeze in a visit before the Golden State
Warriors open training camp. They would fit nicely with the list of
guest-picking celebrities that have ranged from Ken Griffey Jr., father of UA
receiver Trey Griffey to Alice Cooper and Bubba Watson.
The appeal of GameDay is now part of America’s football fabric. This is
Year 23, but ESPN didn’t always have such a willing audience.
When ESPN decided to televise the 100th meeting between Division
III football rivals Amherst and Williams, the Lord Jeffs against the Ephs, the Amherst administration of
1985 balked.
They left the decision to football coach Jim Ostendarp, who
famously said “we’re in the education business, not the entertainment
business.”
You almost expected a poetry reading.
Twenty-two years later, the Ephs and Lord Jeffs met again, a
showdown for the 2007 Little Three championship, and when ESPN’s GameDay crew
erected a stage three days in advance, the population of Williamstown grew and
grew and grew, from 2,500 to almost 14,000.
People camped on every available plot of grass near the
Massachusetts-Vermont border.
When the ESPN people flipped the switch early Saturday morning,
downtown Williamstown was transformed into a mobile fraternity party. Dozens of
people dressed in purple cow costumes (the Eph mascot is a purple cow). Others
held signs that said “FEAR THE COW” and “AMWORST MUST GO.”
On Saturday morning at the UA mall, scores of bleary-eyed
Wildcat fans will sway behind the GameDay stage. If you’re going to be part of
the crowd, jot down these words and put them on a red and blue sign:
PLEASE COME BACK
ESPN News
The original
wildcat mascot arrived on campus October 17, 1915, and was introduced to the
student body the following day at assembly in Herring Hall.
