As Syracuse coach and Bronx native Doug Marrone lifted a sleek crystal trophy in the middle of snowy Yankee Stadium last night, the significance of the name staring back at him was not lost.
The George M. Steinbrenner III Championship Trophy was in Marrone’s hands because his Syracuse team had beaten West Virginia, 38-14, in the third playing of the Pinstripe Bowl. But more specifically, it was made possible by the desires of Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ patriarch now dead two and half years, yet whose legacy still vibrantly echoes throughout the New York sporting landscape.
“The Boss loved [college football],” Yankees president Randy Levine said. “Maybe even if you shot him with sodium pentothal [truth serum], he might even have liked it a little more than baseball, I don’t know. He really, really loved it.”
That love has translated into three consecutive successful bowl games at the Yankees’ new $1.5 billion home on River Avenue and 161st Street in The Bronx. Levine estimated this year’s game brought around $25-30 million in revenue for the city, and the 41,203 tickets sold (with 39,098 walking in the gate, regardless of the weather) was a testament to the game’s drawing ability.
“There is no place that is as nice as New York City, America’s city, this time of year,” said West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck. “To be able to have our student-athletes on the field of the most iconic stadium, certainly in the country and perhaps the world, is a real opportunity.”
Those words, and the fact Levine said the game has again reached all of its economic benchmarks (i.e.: profit), would certainly have made The Boss smile.
After playing halfback while an undergraduate at Williams College, Steinbrenner went on to be a graduate assistant for legendary football coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State, then took assistant coaching jobs at Northwestern and Purdue. He was so attached to Ohio State that, according to Levine, he often flaunted his 1955 national championship ring in the face of Derek Jeter, the Yankees shortstop who was raised in Michigan.
“We should play more games in the borough of The Bronx,” Marrone said after the win, smiling wide, Steinbrenner’s namesake trophy not too far away. “It’s very special to me.”