Ed Podolak's look back at the Orange Bowl experience

This is pure theft on my part, but I enjoyed reading Ed Podolak's blog entries during the 2009 college football season, and he got around to penning his season-capper a week-and-a-half ago.

So I'm giving you this link to Podolak's blog. Here's the passage on him trying to persuade buddy Jimmy Buffett to stay in Miami for the Orange Bowl:

My buddy Jimmy Buffett picked me up Sunday morning and we took off for the Dolphins-Steelers game at Land Shark Stadium. Jimmy and I have been friends for over 30 years and our busy schedules don't allow us to see much of each other. Jimmy was meeting with the owner of the Dolphins to try to extend the naming rights to the stadium. (Landshark is the name of Jimmy's lager beer and his naming rights were expiring). Jimmy in his flip flops and me in my Iowa Hawkeyes golf shirt, surely stood out in the owner's suite but we made the business pitch and then escaped to Jimmy's suite to enjoy the rest of the game.

After the game, Jimmy dropped me back at the boat and I tried to get him to come back down to Landshark Stadium on Tuesday to cheer on the Hawkeyes. He told me he was on his way to Tahiti to write songs. When I pushed him to stay he said, "Podi, I've got to go, you don't want me to be late for work do you". I like a guy who is dedicated. We taped a pre-game show and waved goodbye. He was wearing his Hawkeye Orange Bowl hat as he drove off.

I did a postgame segment with Gary Dolphin and sometimes Podolak on their Iowa radio broadcasts to promote The Gazette and Gazetteonline.  I'm not telling Iowa fans anything they don't already know, but you can learn more from listening to Podolak for five minutes than most color commentators (college or pro) in three hours.