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College Football Bros Already Enjoying Disneyland, Prime Rib Before Rose Bowl
In case you hadn't heard, the Rose Bowl is next weekend, and will play host to the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Stanford Cardinal. While the teams who play the Rose Bowl won't be competing for the national title, it's certainly one of the most storied of the college football bowl games, and has a bunch of traditions the other more prestigious bowls just don't have. And though the game isn't until New Year's Day (Friday this year), both teams have already arrived in Southern California, and were quick to start enjoying the bounties of our fair region: prime rib in Beverly Hills, and Disneyland.Every year, in the days leading up to the game, the participating teams both visit Disneyland before gearing up for a week of intense practice and prep. This order seems kind of backward: shouldn't the winners of the game get to Disneyland afterwards like they do with the Super Bowl?
According to the O.C. Register, the tradition was started by Walt Disney himself, who wanted to give players, coaches and their families a chance to meet Mickey Mouse and blow off some steam before gearing up for the game. Although for some, a day at Disneyland can be the opposite of relaxing.
Anyway, ESPN reports both teams got to skip the lines at Disneyland's California Adventure on Saturday. "I'm all about this side of the park," Stanford head coach David Shaw said. Hopefully he said that knowing this weekend might have been his last chance to experience the Thunder Ranch Jamboree!!
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"Getting through the crowds helps you get tight and compacted—open up the muscles a little bit and have fun doing it," Stanford offensive guard Joshua Garnett told the Register.Iowa defensive back Greg Mabin agreed, and said of Stanford, "They have a very good quarterback and tremendous offensive line; we're going to have to get through it. Visiting Disneyland ought to help us with that." Whatever you say!
Here are some Hawkeyes on Radiator Springs Racers:
The presence of Goofy nodding emphatically doesn't exactly imbue this moment with gravitas, but, there it is:
And, uh, U.S. Senator from New Jersey Cory Booker was there too (he's a Stanford alumnus):
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blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
Honored to see
at Disneyland ...
#GoStanfordpic.twitter.com/WTD3DzcE5G
— Alan George (@treeSIDjorge)
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Not everyone was happy to see the teams at Disneyland:
The boys from Stanford football team are at Disneyland, and they have a big ass mob of groupies following them around the park 😂
— Alyssa Vaniman, MS, LAT, ATC (@thatladylyss) December 27, 2015
All of these Stanford and Iowa football players need to gtfo of Disneyland
— sami (@samischneider4) December 27, 2015
Hopefully they've worked up an appetite. On Sunday afternoon, as City News Service reports the teams will be heading to the famous Beverly Hill's steakhouse Lawry's for the annual "Beef Bowl," which is quite literally a prime rib eating contest. The event, which began in 1956, was apparently "won" by Iowa in the contest's very first outing:
An entry in a January 1965 issue of Sports Illustrated noted that each of the first nine Beef Bowl winners went on to win the Rose Bowl Game, so the steaks are high. As SB Nation fondly recalls, in 2013, Stanford's Joshua Garnett devoured seven cuts of prime rib. According to City News Service, over 82,100 pounds of prime rib have consumed by men with big appetites since the event's inauguration nearly 60 years ago. (Forbes has more on the Beef Bowl if the topic intrigues you.)
Which team will you be betting on rooting for this week?
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