UD vs WSU in Cigar Bowl 1965
You have heard of the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Super Bowl-but did you know there was a Cigar Bowl? Yep, there was the first (and only?) Cigar Bowl between the University of Detroit and Wayne State University held March 18 & 19, 1965 (Thursday at WSU and Friday at UD). It was sponsored by the R.G. Dun Cigar Co. with a $200 prize awarded to the winning university’s student loan or scholarship fund. Co-sponsors were the UD and WSU chapters of the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE).
One of the judges of the contest was film star and cigar smoker Pat O’Brien. The events included: Longest Ash-One cigar, Most Smoke Rings from One Cigar, Shortest Time to Consume One Cigar-Relay, Greatest Pile of Ashes-Team, Most Smoke in Flask-Two man teams. (The Most Smoke in Flask was later called off. The Chemistry Department said it was scientifically impossible to determine the winner.) There were also rules for the spectators: “Bands, cheer leaders and spectators must not interfere with the players in any manner and are particularly admonished to avoid excessive cheering, hand clapping or other actions which disturb the air during smoke ring blowing activities by the teams.”
Wayne State eventually out smoked the U of D team in five out of the eight events. Some of the more notable results: the longest ash was 3.875 inches, record number of smoke rings for an individual was 167 and for the “Shortest Time to Consume One Cigar Event”-the team finished a five-inch cigar in 1.51 minutes.
Maybe U of D team had a good excuse for not being in top shape for the contest. Several U of D team members also spent a great deal of time celebrating St. Patrick’s Day the night before and were reported to be in bad shape in the morning after their 7 a.m., 7:45 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. cigar workouts. Their coach reported,”All in all they didn’t look good this morning, in fact they looked green.”
