Welcome to the 102nd edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 101 right here. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
The “view from the office” tweet is one of the more tired sports cliches, one that I try to work around by never really acknowledging that there is anything different or unusual about my typical office, but I do have to give the Rose Bowl credit for being something different and making me feel something different about it Monday. I mean, just take a look at it.
I had seen that picture so many times before, but I had obviously never had the chance to take it. That changed because of my job and the football I team I cover this fall, and that gave me an opportunity to check off something that hadn’t really explicitly been on my bucket list before but instead hovered in the, “Well, I’m not holding my breath, but that would be cool if I got to do it.” And I got to do it.
The photo sells the bowl well. It does not sell the San Gabriel Mountains well. I had seen them plenty in summer 2014 when I was sitting in traffic on the 5 or the 405. But in the backdrop of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the mountains were vertical and felt right on top of the stadium.
For most of the game, though, we were deprived of the mountains because of a rainstorm that moved into Pasadena and drenched the area. We missed the patented Rose Bowl sunset, and who knows when we’ll get the chance to see it again. But even in the pouring rain, it was still a surreal setting.
One of my favorite thing about photos of the inside of the Rose Bowl is that from the field level, you can see the trees rising up above seating. Usually, your glimpses to the outside world from the field come through gaps in the stadium, and your focus is drawn to the distance. But at the Rose Bowl, that comes when you look up and you see the trees rising above the last row of the stadium. There’s something outside of the stadium, outside of the 120-yard grass field. The first time I really noticed it was in photos from the 2006 Rose Bowl between Texas and USC. And all these years later, I was seeing it myself.
Anyway, that’s another season of football that has come and gone. It involved being in at a makeshift bar in a hotel conference room called “Granddad’s Lounge” on New Year’s Eve.
Some content I wrote in Pasadena
Penn State beats Utah to win the Rose Bowl.
Sean Clifford ends his career in storybook fashion in Pasadena.
The expectations for the 2023 are going to be very, very high. The reasons for optimism are good.
A player gets to follow in the footsteps of his idol.
The next quarterback is ready for what awaits him.
Thank you for reading the 102nd edition of Content Nausea. It will get better. Thank you, and see you soon.
A soul of fire and eyes of flame
Tend to overwhelm her tender frame
When raw winds blew us down her city's streets
She warmed my body with her spirit's heat
Some empty bottles, the cold sweat blues
Howling like outlaws from her rented room
No rising sun confession, dear
Only a restless night I'll nurse for years
—D.G.