The
Citrus Bowl's new name, Camping World Stadium, doesn't exactly roll off the
tongue. By the time we all get used to saying it, the eight-year naming deal
will expire and the rights could get sold again to another company we've never
heard of.
This
is the stark reality of the marriage of convenience between sports and
corporate sponsorships. The bigger story here is the death of the orange in
Orange County. Now that the Citrus Bowl will be erased from maps, the last big
landmark and homage to the industry that gave the county its name is gone.
The
passing wasn't a sudden one. The Citrus name has been on its way out for
decades. But watching the Citrus Bowl name get the boot is kind of like seeing
the name of someone you know in the obituaries. It makes it real.
It
was the early 1980s and the name Tangerine Bowl, which came about in 1947, was
out of date after a freeze in the 1950s had wiped out most of the tangerine
production. "The tangerines were more susceptible to cold," Chicone
said. So the change to the more encompassing term "citrus" seemed
more modern.
"Orange
County at one time was one of the top five producers of citrus," Chicone
said. "It was big time. There were about a dozen packing houses on the
railroad tracks downtown." Today there are so few citrus groves left in
Orange County they could fit neatly inside a single modern housing development
such as east Orlando's Avalon Park.
Long
before the 1980s, the replacement of an orange sculpture near the entrance of
downtown Orlando foreshadowed the future. The pedestal across from Lake Ivanhoe
near Interstate 4 now holds a miniature Statue of Liberty provided by the Boy
Scouts.
In
the 1990s, a giant grapefruit, tangerine, lemon and a pair of oranges at the
Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge on Lee Road near I-4 also disappeared during a
renovation. But the Citrus Bowl remained a constant. Even after the citrus
growers marketing group stopped paying for the sponsorship in 2003, and the
game became known as the Capital One Bowl, the stadium kept the moniker.
The
New Year's Eve game will be called the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl (at
Camping World Stadium).
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180 South “E” Street
Porterville, CA 93257
559-561-3391
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