By: RUSTY MILLER (AP via BlueRidgeNow.com) –

From the first conditioning session on a bleak winter morning until the big rivalry games of November, the one and only dream of the sons of farmers and factory workers from Minnesota and Wisconsin and Ohio and Michigan was the palm trees, sunshine and the spotlight in Pasadena, Calif.

Once upon a time, the Rose Bowl wasn’t just the greatest bowl game for a Big Ten team to go to – it was the only one.

Now that computers help decide who’ll play in the ultimate game – the Bowl Championship Series national title game, that is – the Granddaddy of all Bowls has dropped a notch on the radar of the kids who play the college game. If they can’t get to the BCS championship game, they have to “settle” for a whiff of the roses.

But some still remember what it was like when the Big Ten champ went to Pasadena, and everyone else in the Midwest permafrost stayed home and watched.

“Oh, gosh, yeah,” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said when asked if the Rose Bowl was special at his house. “January 1st in our house, two black-and-white TVs set up side by side, and that old 30-pot coffee maker, that little silver thing.”

Tressel’s dad, Lee, was a Hall of Fame coach at Baldwin-Wallace College. New Year’s Day was one of the few times when the Tressel kids could spend the day with their old man.

“My dad never got off the couch, man,” Tressel said. “We were taking him coffee and switching stations. I mean, that was – shoot, you were living on January Generic Cialis 1st.”

For the winner on Saturday, either…..

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