Blue-Gray Football Classic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia.
Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.(December 2007)

The Blue-Gray Football Classic was an annual American college football all-star game held in Alabama on Christmas Day. It was begun in 1938 and held each year through 2001 at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. The game was not contested in 2002 and was subsequently revived in 2003 in Troy, Alabama. However, the game was discontinued because it lacked a major sponsor after that year.

The format, unsurprisingly given the Classic's name, pitted players who attended college in the states of the former Confederacy, the "Grays," who wore white jerseys, against players who attended school in the rest of the country, the "Blues." Both teams wore gray pants.

The game had an interesting and somewhat checkered history. It was traditionally the first major college all-star game of the year. For this reason, it was difficult to get most of the truly big-name collegiate stars, for they were preparing at the same time for bowl games with their regular teams.

In recent years, therefore, most of the players had been players from teams with losing records and from smaller schools which do not play NCAA Division I football. The Classic gave these players an opportunity to be noticed by NFL scouts and others who may not have had the opportunity to observe them previously.

Given its setting, it wasn't surprising that this game was slow to desegregate, and in fact was once removed from the schedule of NBC for this reason. Since then, the game had not only been desegregated, but in the process showcased many African-American stars from smaller, lesser-known schools (including many historically black colleges and universities). In fact, Jerry Rice played in the 1984 game and was named Most Valuable Player.

The Classic also made many concessions to make it more television-friendly, such as shortening the first quarter to 12 minutes on at least one occasion to make it fit more easily into a doubleheader package, and changing the rules so that after any score a team down by a double-digit margin will receive the kickoff, even if they in fact were the one which had just scored, presumably to keep the game close and prevent the loss of viewership which often occurs in grossly uneven contests.

In recent years, the game had always been played on Christmas Day, which may have tended to limit the live gate, but which insured that it was on television at a time when many viewers are available for it.

Even in its new setting in Troy, AL on the campus of Troy University's Movie Gallery Stadium, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Montgomery, the Montgomery Lions Club had remained active in the staging of the game, and in fact were instrumental in finding this new venue to replace the aging, and some would say crumbling, Cramton Bowl. In fact, the game's 2002 hiatus was related to two primary factors: the failure to obtain a new corporate sponsor to purchase the game's naming rights after the Kelley-Springfield Tire Co. (a subsidiary of the Goodyear) decided to discontinue its sponsorship, and the declining condition of the Cramton Bowl. It was generally assumed that the Lions and others would have liked to return the game to Montgomery, but did not do so because of deteriorating condition of the Cramton Bowl stadium.