Did You Know...

The Sun Bowl is held each year in the stadium of the same name, which serves as the home arena for the UTEP (University of Texas at El Paso) Miners. This huge event, the second oldest of these gridiron classics—only the Rose Bowl is older—dates back to January 1, 1935. Various sponsors have lent their support and their names to the game; you may have heard of the John Hancock Sun Bowl or the Wells Fargo Sun Bowl; currently, it's officially the Brut Sun Bowl.

Nowadays the Sun Bowl features a match-up of teams from long-honored conferences: the Pac-10 and the Big 12 or the Big East. However, the very first Sun Bowl was a fund-raiser involving El Paso High, sponsored by the Kiwanis Club and four other local service organizations to aid poor children and upgrade the school stadium. The following year the bowl was staged between New Mexico State University and Hardin-Simmons, setting the precedent of a mid-winter collegiate contest which continues to this day. The current stadium was built in 1963 and expanded in 1981 to seat over 50,000.

Over the decades, numerous participants in the Sun Bowl have gone on to fame and fortune: SunBowl.org mentions Ara Parseghian, Merlin Olsen, Tony Dorsett, Barry Sanders, Billy Stevens, Charlie Johnson, Jesse Whittenton, and - this might surprise you - Burt Reynolds!