The Outback Bowl certainly did not reach the zenith it now shares with only two or three others of the overflowing bowl market without its share of downs and almost outs.

Just check its background out with three Tampa Sports Authority executive directors who have been part of the long, hard, climb—Joe Zalupski, Rick Nafe and Barbara Casey.

Or, if you could check in with Ron Gorton, you’d get the best and worst of them.

It was promoter Ron Gorton’s early vision and schemes and charades, don’t quit or give up or give in, optimism, and contacts that kept this event we are celebrating in such style and with such success in the fray. This event almost went away many times. Was down many times, but never really out. Almost, but never completely.

It was Ron Gorton who years ago convinced a large eastern grocery store to buy out a stadium, then give away the tickets for a college football game. It worked and set Gorton on his way.

The original Tampa Stadium (The Big Sombrero to sportsman Chris Berman) which seated right at 46,000 on the sides only when it all started, had about 17,800 in it for what was the originator of the American Bowl back with the start of the Seventies. Florida and Air Force had christened it with the start of 1969 with bleachers in the end zones and 50,000 packed in. But, perhaps the most memorable event of the day grand day in sports here, was when the Air Force Academy released its Falcon mascot atop the press box, but, instead flying downward to an outstretched landing stick, the falcon turned south and actually flew to the team plane at MacDill AFB to await the rest of its crowd later. Nobody told us of the return. Tampa searched for the lost/not lost falcon for days until the Force let us know the truth.

The Tampa bowl game was an all-star game for years, named the American Bowl, the All-American Bowl, the Can-American, Hall of Fame Bowl, and finally the Outback Bowl with Boston College and Georgia in 1986 under the sponsorship of the celebrated restaurant chain. It was a keeper for Outback, and Outback certainly has been a keeper for the bowl Jim McVay now runs.

This Outback Bowl that is flat sold out (many aren’t), flat big time, I think in the Top Three in the country, gets the best (Tennessee vs. Penn State ) to play, and all the sponsors it needs, is a model of success. And, it is because it was not always one. It had so many builders, though, quickly know it would be the flop of others if it were not in this fine part of the world, in this finest stadium in the NFL, on the finest turf in the NFL, where leadership jumps out to support, where successful people provide guidance and support, like in money, like the Ed DeBartolos, the George Steinbrenners, the Pepins, the TECOs, our Tourist Bureaus—no, can’t get into that, leave people out.

But, it would not be the big dog it is in bowls now were it not for the Gortons of the start, who was imaginative and fun and wild.

He wanted a gimmick for the American Bowl. Let’s pick an American of the Year and name him at half, he said, on Chesley’s Mizlou Network, the one Vic Piano now heads from headquarters in Odessa. So he named Ray Kroc, a close friend of the late Fritz Casper (Joe’s dad), the first winner, as I remember. I know the big man came and got his cup. He named a movie star who came, got his cup and in his cups before the TV show and we all knew it. 

Then Gorton at a game, somebody didn’t show, so Ron took me and we walked around stadium looking for someone to be declared the American of the year. He opened the Mizlous broadcast truck and tried to get C.D. Chesley, in charge there, to be the American of the Year. C.D., a candid man who used a voice-box, slammed the idea and Gorton with a profane refusal and slammed the door on us, too.

Gorton, unflinching, said he had an idea. It had rained for days, and Gorton and Zalupski had put men on the metal covers on the ground around the field hoping to stop the flooding expected. One little man in the northwest end zone was named Bobby Dews. He was hired to do that—stand on a manhole cover and he was doing it well.

Gorton knew Dews as a war hero. I did not know that. He grabbed him, rushed him to the stand at half and declared Bobby Dews the American of the Year. We checked. He’d indeed had some heroic times. Later, Dews from Atlanta wrote a book about his war times. It sold.

Gorton’s teams were fine. Then came the all-stars. He had the best lineup in the nation that one year—I remember Steve Kiner was one. He gave them good watches and a trip to the Bahamas.

The bowl people went back to the team vs. team concept and as our place grew in reputation and amenities, and our stadium was changed for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Super Bowls, and soccer and all that, well, the bowl became an ideal vehicle for the Outback, just as Outback became just what Nafe and Zalupski and Casey and McVay and his associates needed. Growth and success does not happen without guidance, McVay and his staff (PR Mike Schultze) and the great financial boosters have provided. Andy, by the way, success, quality and achievement are not hard sells to the teams, sponsors, the people and even the media, too.

But, as with all things, you got to have the visionaries and the ones who will give it a go—like old Gorton, and old Chesley and the Tampa area people do not like to say no—or don’t know how to do that, if the deal sounds as good as the Outback Bowl has become.