The Aloha Bowl was a

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

(then known as Division I-A)

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

played in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

Aloha Stadium Aloha Stadium is a closed multi-purpose stadium located in Halawa, Hawaii, a western suburb of Honolulu (though with a Honolulu address). It is the largest stadium in the state of Hawaii. , the stadium ceased fan-attended operations indefinitely ...

History

The Aloha Bowl was established in 1982 by

Mackay Yanagisawa Mackay Yanagisawa (1918–2000) was an American sports promoter. Known as the "Shogun of Sports," he created the Hula Bowl and was a co-organizer of the Aloha Bowl, two collegiate-level football games in Hawaii, United States. Early life Yanagisa ...

, a sportsman from

Oahu Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...

. With the exception of the 1983-86 playings, the Aloha Bowl was traditionally played on

Christmas morning ''Christmas Morning'' is a comic but poignant short story by Ireland's Frank O'Connor, first published in The New Yorker in 1936. The narrator of the story is Larry Delaney, an Irish boy who appears regularly in O'Connor's stories, and serves a ...

in Honolulu. For most of its playings, the game was sponsored by

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...

Corporation. The bowl originally applied for certification by the NCAA Division I Championship Committee in 1981, but certification was delayed until 1982. The inaugural game was played in 1982 and the last game was played in 2000, after it lost its sponsorship as a result of a corporate merger between Jeep and

DaimlerChrysler The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacture ...

. In 1998 and 1999, the Aloha Bowl was part of a doubleheader followed by the

Oahu Bowl The Oahu Bowl was a National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision (then known as Division I-A) bowl game played in Honolulu, Hawaii at Aloha Stadium. Played on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, the Oahu Bowl was sponsored by th ...

; the 1998 event was the first televised doubleheader in American college football history. After Jeep dropped its sponsorship, the bowl committees of the Hawaiian bowl games elected to move the games to the U.S. mainland. The Oahu Bowl moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and was played as the

Seattle Bowl The Seattle Bowl was a college football bowl game played in 2001 and 2002 between teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Pacific-10 Conference in Seattle. This bowl game was a continuation of the Oahu Bowl which had moved to Seattle ...

for two years. The Aloha Bowl was to move to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, but before the move could be completed the game lost its bowl certification. San Francisco received a bowl game for the 2001 season anyway, which is now known as the

Redbox Bowl The San Francisco Bowl was an annual postseason college football bowl game certified by the NCAA and played in the San Francisco Bay Area. Originally named the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl during its first two editions from 2002 to 2003, it w ...

. Hawaii did not remain without a bowl for long, however, as a new bowl committee received certification for a Christmastime game in 2002 at Aloha Stadium. The Aloha Bowl was preceded years earlier by the

Pineapple Bowl The Pineapple Bowl was a college football bowl game played during the 1940s and early 1950s in Honolulu, Hawaii, at Honolulu Stadium. The game featured the then- Hawaii Rainbows and an invited team from the mainland. History The Pineapple Bowl w ...

and

Poi Bowl The Poi Bowl was a college football bowl game played during the late 1930s in Honolulu, Hawaii, at Honolulu Stadium. The game featured the then- Hawaii Rainbows and, usually, an invited team from the Pacific Coast Conference. History The game was ...

Game results

Appearances by team

Appearances by conference

*Note: Table based on conference affiliation at the time the game was played and may not represent current conference alignment.

Television

Most editions of the Aloha Bowl were televised by

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

(1986–2000).

In popular culture

* In the " Twas the Nut Before Christmas" episode of ''

King of the Hill ''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It aired its original non-syndicated run from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, and centers on the Hills, an Am ...

'', first aired on December 17, 2000,

Hank Hill Hank Rutherford HillSeason Five, Episode Ten: Yankee Hankie (at time 04:42 of 22:30) Birth Certificate has his name listed as Hank Rutherford Hill (born April 15, 1953) is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Fox animated tele ...

exclaims "Tomorrow,

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

service falls right between the Aloha Bowl and the

References

{{Aloha Bowl navbox American football in Hawaii College sports in Hawaii Defunct college football bowls Recurring sporting events established in 1982 1982 establishments in Hawaii 2000 disestablishments in Hawaii Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2000