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Wildcats, sloths and pigskins...

By Robert Niles
Published: December 29, 2009 at 3:03 PM
Lots of theme parks host college football teams and their fans during bowl season. (I live in Pasadena, California, so trust me, I know all about bowl games....) The parks all stage made-for-the-camera events, designed to get fans back home thinking about the park in question.

So how does this affect you, the knowledgeable theme park fan? It doesn't. But I went to Northwestern, and I continue to be so tickled by my Wildcats making bowl games that you better believe I'm going run a picture of a Northwestern player here.

Here's Northwestern senior defensive tackle Marshall Thomas meeting a sloth at Busch Gardens Tampa yesterday:

Marshall Thomas and... friend?

Northwestern plays Auburn in the Outback Bowl in Tampa on New Year's Day.

This makes two years in a row that I've run a post on an NU bowl game. Here's hoping this becomes a beloved TPI holiday tradition.... ;-)

Readers' Opinions

From Manny Barron on December 29, 2009 at 4:29 PM
Some bowl games in theme park cities that come to mind... Rose,National Championship-Pasadena/LA area, St.Petersburg,Outback-Tampa
Champs sports, Capital One- Orlando
Poinsettia,Holiday- san diego
Alamo-San Antonio.

Here in El Paso for the Sun Bowl, i believe they take the teams(Stanford and Oklahoma) to the boot factory,lol. Should be a great Sun Bowl though.

From Robert Niles on December 29, 2009 at 6:13 PM
Last year, Northwestern played in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, and visited the SeaWorld there.
From Anthony Murphy on December 29, 2009 at 9:04 PM
ILL-IN-oh forget it!


Anyway, go NU because 1. Its a local team and 2. I know a couple of people on the team. Nice guys.


Anyway, they called yesterday and said it was freezing, but they loved Busch Gardens.

From Ryan Sanford on December 30, 2009 at 7:43 AM
Robert,

Don't forget Northwestern is 10-1 in basketball right now.
Although they may have some problems when they play my Spartans.

From Robert Niles on December 30, 2009 at 9:47 AM
AP-ranked for the first time in 40 years! A very good week to be a Wildcat.

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