January 1, 1902: The 1st College Football Bowl Game
January 1, 1902: The Tournament of Roses Association, operator of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, outside Los Angeles, every New Year's Day since 1890, hosts a college football game. Although not immediately, it becomes an annual tradition. By the dawn of the 20th Century, football had become a big business at a few American colleges, especially in the East. The schools that would eventually form the Ivy League led the way: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown. A few other Northeastern schools were already playing, including Rutgers and Penn State. In the South, schools such as the Universities of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and Auburn University, had already begun play. And in the Midwest, some of the schools that would eventually form the Big Ten Conference had done so, including the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, and the University of Chicago -- a school that w...