NEW YORK (AP) -There was a time when great college football games were regularly played in the Big Apple.
In the early and middle part of the 20th century, Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium hosted some of the most storied college teams.
Major college football is coming back to New York next season, starting when Army plays Notre Dame at the new $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium.
A bowl game matching teams from the Big East and the Big 12 conferences to be played at Yankee Stadium following the 2010 season is close to becoming a reality, and more regular-season college games are also in the works.
``It is our goal to have two regular season games as well as a bowl game every year,'' Mark Holtzman, the director or program development for the Yankees, said in a recent phone interview. ``We are having discussions with a number of big institutions.
``Even schools on the West Coast understand the value of playing in Yankee Stadium.''
And the Yankees understand the value of having events in the stadium year-round.
``When we built it the idea was to utilize it way beyond the baseball season,'' Yankees president Randy Levine said.
Army will play Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium Nov. 20, 2010. The Black Knights, whose West Point campus is about an hour drive from the stadium, have also agreed to play regular season games there in 2011 (vs. Rutgers), 2012 (vs. Air Force) and 2014 (vs. Boston College).
Proximity, Notre Dame's national appeal and history made Army-ND a natural.
From 1925-46, when Army and Notre Dame were among the elite programs in college football, the Black Nights and Fighting Irish would routinely play each other in the Big Apple.
At first they played in Ebbets Field, the home of baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers. One of the most storied games in the rivalry - played in 1924 and immortalized by the great sports writer Grantland Rice - was played at the Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants baseball team played. Rice famously began his story, ``Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.'' referring to Notre Dame's backfield.
Eventually, Yankee Stadium became the site for the Army-Notre Dame game, including the 1946 matchup between the top-ranked Black Knights and No. 2 Fighting Irish that ended in a 0-0 tie.
Those games helped build Notre Dame's so-called straphanger alumni - New Yorkers who have never set foot in South Bend, Ind., but root passionately for the Irish.
Getting Notre Dame to agree to come back wasn't too tough for Holtzman, who worked for the NFL for 14 years before being hired by the Yankees six months ago. Notre Dame is making an effort these days to get back to playing in big markets around the country as a way to cultivate its national following. It also didn't hurt that coach Charlie Weis is from New Jersey.
For the Big East, hooking up with Yankee Stadium for a bowl game was a slam dunk. The league has always considered New York its home away from home (the league offices are in Providence, R.I.). The Big East has been playing its basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden for 26 years.
The soon-to-be announced bowl in the Bronx also provides an opportunity for the league's Northeast-based teams to get a postseason game on their turf for a change.
``The bowl system is one of the great systems in all of sports, but it's been dominated by Southern, warm-weather locations, which clearly has been an advantage to those schools in those locations,'' said Nick Carparelli, associate commissioner for the Big East.
The Big Ten was approached about providing the competition for the Big East, but ultimately the Big 12 moved in.
Geographically, it might not seem like a logical fit, with all the Big 12 teams located west of the Mississippi. But with about 9 million people in New York city alone, Holtzman said it's easy to find a thriving alumni group from just about any big school in the area.
Plus bowls are partly about giving fans and the teams a destination to visit, and while it might be cold in New York in December, there is certainly lost to do.
``There's no place better during the holiday times than New York city,'' Levine said.
The biggest obstacle to luring teams to Yankee Stadium, or any neutral site for that matter, during the regular season is getting a school to give up a lucrative home game.
Army's Michie Stadium holds 40,000. For the Black Knights, giving up a home game is worth the exposure they'll gain by playing at Yankee Stadium.
``If you're a young man thinking about the service academies,'' Army coach Rich Ellerson said when the Yankee Stadium deal was announced, ``this is part of the equation.''Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
