Cigar Bowl

The Cigar Bowl was a post-season college football bowl game featuring small college teams held in Tampa, Florida from 1946 to 1954. It was played at Phillips Field^[1], which was located across the Hillsborough River from downtown Tampa at the current site of Tampa Preparatory School and Julian Lane Riverfront Park. The contest was sponsored by the local Egypt Temple Shrine as a fundraising event^[2] and was discontinued when the organization decided to withdrawal support in 1955 ^[3].

There were several attempts to revive the game as a major bowl in subsequent years, but the lack of a larger venue made drawing top college teams impossible^[4]. (Phillips Field, which held a maximum of 20,000 fans with added temporary bleachers, was the largest sports venue in the area until the construction of Tampa Stadium in the late 1960s.^[5])

The bowl's name was inspired by the local cigar industry, which had been a major factor in Tampa's growth around the turn of the 20th Century.

Game results

Date	Winning Team		Losing Team
December 7, 1946	Southern Miss	55	Havana University	0
January 1, 1947	Delaware	21	Rollins	7
January 1, 1948	Missouri Valley	26	West Chester	7
January 1, 1949	Missouri Valley	13	St. Thomas	13
January 2, 1950	Florida State	19	Wofford	6
January 1, 1951	Wisconsin–La Crosse	47	Valparaiso	14
December 29, 1951	Brooke Army Medical Center	20	Camp Lejeune	0
December 13, 1952	Tampa	21	Lenoir-Rhyne	12
January 1, 1954	Missouri Valley	12	Wisconsin–La Crosse	12
December 17, 1954	Tampa	21	Charleston	0

See also

• List of college bowl games

Notes

1. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3NEOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=e1UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3638,2751542&dq=cigar-bowl+tampa&hl=en
2. ^ http://egyptshrine.org/history_es.html
3. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pHgcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5GQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5032,6385103&dq=cigar-bowl+tampa&hl=en
4. ^ http://www.tampabayfootball.net/dabucsdb/obpro.htm
5. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rIEyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tOoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=726,2522666&dq=cigar-bowl+tampa+phillips-field&hl=en