CHRISTMAS came early for Lenny and Marcia Klompus, the Jeep Aloha Bowl co-everything. Aloha Bowl matchup
a great stocking stufferLong before the other bowl games were lined up, awaiting the outcome of three conference football championships, they had Michigan State booked for Christmas Day.
To top it off, because of its tie-in with the Pac-10, the Aloha Bowl got the Washington Huskies, the conference's fourth-place team, when the UCLA Bruins knocked off Southern Cal and its coach, John Robinson, while they were at it.
The Sporting News rated the top 20 bowl games and listed the Aloha Bowl as the fifth best behind only the Sugar, Rose, Orange and Citrus bowls. Better than the Fiesta Bowl (Kansas State-Syracuse ) or Cotton Bowl (UCLA-Texas A&M).
Heady company indeed.
"We feel good about it," said Klompus. "We're very excited. We got two Top 25 teams. From what I've seen the last five days, it's going to be a hard-hitting football game with a lot of intensity."
Luck? Not quite. In the words of the late Los Angeles Dodgers owner, Walter O'Malley, who had never left anything to chance, "Luck is a residue of design." And, in the words of Klompus, "The harder you work, the luckier you get."
He certainly worked at it.
"We had talked to Michigan State for a few months," said Klompus. "We had the opportunity and we seized it. I'm not sure how many people really realized how we jumped on that."
WELL, maybe the Big 12 people did, since they have a working agreement with the Aloha Bowl. But Klompus didn't want to sit around and wait for the Big 12 scenario to unfold after the conference playoff between Nebraska and Texas A&M. So he jumped at the chance to land Michigan State.
Klompus had the Spartans of the mathematically challenged Big Ten seriously in mind when he went to East Lansing, Mich., to watch them play Penn State on Nov. 29. The Spartans not only outplayed the Nittany Lions, they stomped them.
He extended Michigan State officials an unofficial invitation by the fourth quarter and then extended an official invitation to the Aloha Bowl right after the game.
"Certainly, we had no control over the Pac-10 in terms of how all that worked out," Klompus said. But he couldn't have asked for a more locally popular Pac-10 team than the Huskies, who have four Hawaii players on their roster. One of them is All-American center Olin Kreutz, who's leaving a year early for the National Football League draft.
"It's a great Christmas present for the people of Hawaii," Klompus said about Thursday's game.
And a great yule gift for Kreutz and senior offensive lineman Petrocelli Kesi, another local product who will be playing his final game in a Husky uniform before hometown friends and family.
"I'm happy to be home," said Kesi, a former St. Louis High standout. "There was some talk about the Sun Bowl, but we didn't want to go back there. It's a lot nicer here."
KESI'S looking forward to the game even if he might only spell Kreutz at center or substitute for one of the starting guards.
"It would be nice to start with the other seniors, but my role is backing up Olin and whoever's on the line. And being ready any time," said Kesi. "It's a big game and we have to win this game, first. I understand that."
The last time he played at Aloha Stadium was in the 1992 Prep Bowl. But he knew then he'd still be playing football somewhere. Now, the realization has hit the 6-foot-4, 330-pound Kesi that this might be the final game of his career if the NFL doesn't come calling.
"Even if I don't ever play again, I'm satisfied," he said. "I have a college degree and my last game is at home."