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What do Jerry Jones,
18.9million pounds of turf and
an animatronic parrot have
in common? They’re perfect
fodder for aspiring college
bowl game know-it-alls
BY KEVIN ALEXANDER
WHETHER YOU’RE
a football fan or not,
odds are good that at some point during
the first two weeks of January you’ll end
up in a bar, a friend’s house or a techno-
logically advanced restroom, watching
one of the seemingly countless bowl
games that mark the end of the college
football season. We can’t tell youwho’ll be
playing in those games, but we can give
you the inside scoop on where they’ll
be played—so that when your friends
go on about, say, how sluggish a certain
team looks on the field, you can chime in
with something like “Perhaps it’s because
the grass they’re playing on is actually a
variant of Bermuda called Tifway 419.”
And so forth.
Ready to be the life of the party this
month? Here we go.
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
JANUARY 2012
RONALD MARTINEZ/GETTY IMAGES (ARLINGTON); JONATHAN FERREY/GETTY IMAGES (PHOENIX)
UNIVERSITYOFPHOENIXSTADIUM
GLENDALE, ARIZ.
The Big Game:
Tostitos Fiesta
Bowl (Jan. 2)
,
Fast facts:
Opened 2006; capacity
72,200; natural grass field
About that field:
The first fully
retractable natural grass playing field in
North America, it uses a grass variety
called Tifway 419 that’s nestled in an
18.9-million-pound tray kept outside
the stadium when not in use. Seriously.
When someone at your party
inevitably comments on how packed
the stadium looks:
Mention that if the
seats were set in a straight line, they
would stretch for 18 miles.
When a blimp’s-eye view of the
stadium’s exterior appears:
Inform
your friends that the stadium’s skin was
designed to evoke a barrel cactus.
If your friends still aren’t impressed:
Point out that a barrel cactus can hold
up to 130 gallons of water. Then tell
them the stadium’s retractable roof
is made of a translucent fabric called
Bird-Air to give the place an open, airy
feel even when the roof is closed.
COWBOYS STADIUM
ARLINGTON, TEXAS
The Big Game:
AT&T Cotton Bowl
Classic (Jan. 6)
,
Fast facts:
Opened 2009; capacity
110,000; Matrix artificial turf field
Number of nicknames involving
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones:
Seven (led by “Jonestown,” “Jones-
Mahal” and “Jerrydome”)
Proof that everything is, in fact,
bigger in Texas:
The stadium features
the world’s largest operable glass doors
and single-span roof structure, and was
made using 14,100 tons of structural
steel—the same as in 92 Boeing 777s.
If your friends still aren’t impressed:
Note that Guinness World Records
awarded the stadium a certificate in
2009 for its “world’s largest high-
definition video display.” At 11,520
square feet, it dwarfs the second larg-
est, an 8,925-square-footer at Kansas
City’s Kauffman Stadium.
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