PORT ANGELES — Bruce Skinner is most well-known in the Port Angeles area as being the executive director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation and organizer of the Port Angeles Roughrider Hall of Fame.
But many people may not realize that Skinner is also a trailblazer in the annual Jan. 1 college bowl game world.
For Skinner’s accomplishments of elevating the Fiesta Bowl to the same pantheon as the Sugar, Rose and Orange bowls, he is being inducted on Jan. 1 at this year’s Fiesta Bowl into the Bowl Season Leadership Hall of Fame.
Skinner served as the executive director of the Fiesta Bowl for 10 years (1980 to 1990) and was the assistant executive director from 1973 to 1980.
When Skinner first started working for the Fiesta Bowl, at the time based in Tempe, Ariz., it was a second-tier bowl game that hosted teams such as Arizona State, BYU, Wyoming and Pitt. These weren’t bad teams as some of them were ranked in the top 10 in the nation, but they weren’t truly the nation’s elite programs.
It was during Skinner’s tenure that the Fiesta Bowl became a major player in college football and hosted a number of national championship games prior to the College Football Playoff.
Skinner said the Fiesta Bowl was the first to move to New Year’s Day to challenge the hold that the Orange, Rose, Cotton and Sugar bowls had on that day.
“Prior to us doing it, no one else would play on New Year’s Day,” Skinner said. “There was a lot of opposition to it.”
Once moving to New Year’s Day, the Fiesta Bowl hosted some pretty good games such as No. 7 Penn State versus No. 8 USC in 1982 and No. 5 Michigan vs. No. 7 Nebraska in 1986.
The Fiesta Bowl really hit a new level in 1987. That year, the bowl game hosted No. 1 Miami with Vinny Testaverde and Michael Irvin and a host of other future NFL stars versus No. 2 Penn State. It was the de facto college football championship game, something that was rare in those days because usually the No. 1-ranked team sought a lower-ranked team it could easily beat in a bowl game.
“It’s still the most-watched college football game ever,” Skinner said. “It was a spectacle.”
Penn State, a massive underdog, pulled off a huge 14-10 upset over the Hurricanes, bolstering the game even more.
Skinner said what made that game possible was getting title sponsorship for the game. Sunkist sponsored the bowl, which became the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl for a time. That allowed the Fiesta Bowl to give each school a $3 million payout to compete with the Orange, Rose and Sugar bowls. Skinner said he got the idea from how the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics used title sponsorships to help pay for that event.
“Miami was willing to play the No. 2 team, but they weren’t going to do it for $1 million,” Skinner said.
That 1987 game boosted the trend of the No. 1 and No. 2 teams playing for the national championship, helping to lead to the Bowl Championship Series championship and later the College Football Playoff system.
The Fiesta Bowl hosted another de facto national championship in Skinner’s last year with the event in 1990 when No. 1 Notre Dame played No. 3 West Virginia. It went on to host national championship games in 1996 (Nebraska vs. Florida), 1999 (Tennessee vs. Florida State) and 2003 (Ohio State vs. Miami). Since then, the bowl has twice hosted College Football Playoff semifinals.
Skinner said his ceremony is set to take place between the third and fourth quarters of this year’s Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1 between Oklahoma State and Notre Dame. The game, now played at the domed State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., and sponsored by PlayStation, will be broadcast on ESPN beginning at 10 a.m.
The Bowl Season Association membership consists of all Division I college football bowl games and promotes the benefits of the college bowl system.
Other 2021 inductees are Jim “Hoss” Brock, Cotton Bowl; George Crumbley, Peach Bowl; Mitch Dorger, Rose Bowl; Dan McNamara, Orange Bowl; and Chuck Rohe, Citrus Bowl.
Skinner has also been the president of the International Festivals and Events Association (1990-2001).
He is the author of the book, The Complete Guide to Selling Event Sponsorship, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., of New York, and is the founder of the highly successful Arizona Rock n Roll Marathon in Phoenix and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathons and Half Marathons in Seattle and San Antonio. The 2004 race was the largest first-time running event in history, with more than 29,000 participants.
Skinner has served as the Executive Director of the OMC Foundation in Port Angeles for the past 31 years. He has been inducted into three other halls of fame — The International Festivals and Events Association (2002), the Arizona Runners Hall of Fame (2017), and the International Live Events Association (2020). He also ran a marathon in Antarctica in 2019.
