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		Will the Emerald Bowl go the way of the Shrine game? By Michael Duca January 2, 2006

	SAN FRANCISCO--Last Thursday at SBC Park the nicest comment might have come from the head football coach of the University of Utah, Kyle Cunnigham, " it was extremely lovely to be in a city as nice as San Francisco for the holidays. The players were treated very well." As Cunningham pointed out, an option is to play a bowl game in Las Vegas. On that subject he said "the only place you want to see Vegas is in your rear view mirror -- that's the best view of it." I actually lived in Vegas for a while and for the three friends I still have there -- just kidding. The East-West Shrine game should still be in San Francisco. It was here its entire life. The game should be financially guaranteed by the NFL. The Shrine game provided a place for NFL scouts to watch top talent play against each other. The game is scheduled to be played in San Antonio, Texas, Saturday January 21st. The primary reason that game existed beyond affording the pro scouts a chance to see players against top competition was, of course, to raise money for Shriner's Charity. You don't get the followers of a school or team to show up and fill the city for a game like that. You have 100 players coming in from probably from 75 different schools, half of them from across the country. You’re not going to bring a lot of fans to watch one player show up. The game uses a different economic model. The model that did exist, which may or may not work well in San Antonio (where they have moved the game) is that local Shriners' chapters have to sell the tickets and get the people out there. It’s unfortunate. We've had so many games, and so many bowl games invented in the past few years, without much staying power. The Silicon Valley Bowl in San Jose, canceled in April 2005, is one of them. The East-West Shrine game was 75 years old -- older than the Orange Bowl. It should have been in some way preserved and protected. The NCAA didn't really have to deal with it because it was really to aid and abet the NFL scouts. It is just really unfortunate it didn't draw very well at the end of its tenure here. The last few years maybe 25,000 people attended the Shrine game. I can remember attending at Stanford Stadium. When my son was young we went out there to a game. There were 60,000 people watching that game -- it used to be really quite the big deal. It was the last college football game of the season usually and it was quite the spectacle to watch. You got to watch a lot of players who had performed in bowl games, or whose teams had not been good enough to get into a bowl game. They were stellar performers who would come out and play each other one last time before the draft. It was always an exciting thing to watch. It’s just unfortunate that we have so many games, two bowl games in Phoenix, two Bowl games in San Diego. Cities are beginning to double up on them now, and it is hard for anyone to stand out and get much visibility unless it’s the national championship game. I'm presuming that there is a Shriners' Hospital somewhere in the vicinity of San Antonio. If there is not then they're depriving the players probably one of the most significant and memorable moments of their lives. Everyone I've talked to who’s been a participant at a Shrine Game talked at length about the kids that they visited. Dick Butkus was in San Francisco a few years ago when he was inducted into the Shrine Hall of Fame and he still remembered the hospital visit he made here in San Francisco. The Hospital closed in San Francisco a number of years ago and they've built a new campus up in Sacramento. The players would go to Sacramento and visit. It really made it a regional thing where players from outside this area got an opportunity to do more than just plop in San Francisco and see what you could reach by Cable Car. The players really got to see Northern California and the agricultural area that you have to drive through to get to Sacramento. The impact on the kids, of course, is just shifted. Now it will be the impact on kids in a different part of the country but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Shriners operate a lot of hospitals and they do it with a model that you would love to see replicated in other health care facilities. These are kids who have very little hope anywhere but at a Shriner's Hospital, where you've got tremendous resources for crippled children, for burn victims, things like that. They are cared for absolutely free of charge. If you are admitted to a Shriner's Hospital, regardless of your ability to pay you are treated with some of the best care available. As for the Emerald Bowl being in San Francisco, San Francisco sure isn't Atlanta and it’s surely not Salt Lake City either. Each of those cities has its charms, each of those cities has its attractions, but, as you know I get to travel a little bit in the off season. This year I will wind up spending almost two months of the off-season over in Europe and I can tell you that when you’re in Paris, when you’re in Madrid, people ask you where you’re from, and if you say America they say, "oh yeah that's a wonderful place." If you say California they're eyes begin to light up but if you say San Francisco they either tell you "I was there once” or “that's the one place in the world I'd want to go." San Francisco is the world's favorite city. For kids just getting ready to launch on their lives to have an opportunity to come out here and see how great this area is to live in is just invaluable advertising. It is stuff you can’t replicate any other way. These are kids who are going to be leaders as they grow up and they're going to remember what it was like here and appreciate the opportunity to be here and maybe some of them will come back and join us. The Emerald Bowl will begin to host PAC 10 teams this coming December 2006. Michael Duca covered the Emerald Bowl, truly misses the Shrine game in SBC and co-hosts Sportstalk on 1430 KVVN San Jose and 1110 KLIB Sacramento.