Who put the sugar into the Sugar Bowl?

Who put the sugar into the Sugar Bowl?

	Published : Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:40 By : Agencies Print this Story

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - History provides a touch of sweet irony for the 2008 Sugar Bowl, when the undefeated University of Hawaii takes the field to play Georgia: When the idea for the annual classic was first floated in the 1920s, Louisiana was the nation's sugar-growing king -- but only because Hawaii was a territory whose harvests weren't being counted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Still, history and geography are the real reasons New Orleans' premier college football game is called the Sugar Bowl. The game's original stadium was built on land where Etienne de Bore' became the first person in La Louisiane to crystallize sugar into granules.

It was 1795. The indigo crop, until then a major money maker, had collapsed after two years of drought followed by two of a plague of insects that stripped the stalks naked. Plantation owners were near bankruptcy.

De Bore gambled on sugar. Friends and in-laws counseled against it. Although sugar was produced in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, nobody in Louisiana had been able to make anything more portable than molasses from the cane's sweet juice.

De Bore looked up sugar makers who had fled Saint-Domingue when their slaves rebelled in 1791 (the start of the revolution that created Haiti). They had the skill and technology he needed. De Bore became rich, and sugar quickly became a major crop.

In a quirk of history, the sugar industry in Louisiana nearly collapsed in 1926, the year before the New Orleans Item's publisher and sports editor first floated the idea of an annual football classic called the Sugar Bowl in Tulane Stadium.

Sugar cane diseases had cut sugar cane production by two-thirds. But no other state was even producing sugar at the time. Florida's production began in 1928, and Texas isn't shown as harvesting a crop from 1924-71. Neither produced more than a tiny fraction of Louisiana's harvest. But Hawaii was producing 7 tons or more during the entire period, according to the Hawaii state agriculture department's Web site.

Imports of Javanese varieties added disease resistance that helped bring back Louisiana's sugar industry. Production, which had fallen from 3.3 million tons of cane in 1925 to 1.1 million tons in 1926, was up to 2.1 million by 1928, and 3.1 million a year later.

Publisher James M. Thomson and sport editor Fred Digby were having less success with their proposal for a Sugar Bowl. Mayor A.J. O'Keefe asked the Southern Conference in 1929 to back such a game, but was spurned.

It wasn't until 1934 that New Orleans business, civic, professional and athletic organizations created The Mid-Winter Sports Association to develop the Sugar Bowl on its own.

The association's efforts paid off in 1935, when Tulane beat Temple in a battle of undefeateds. The trophy was a replica of a silver wine cooler that was crafted in 1830 and donated by a French Quarter antiques dealer.

These days, Louisiana is the nation's No. 2 sugar producer, behind Florida, with Hawaii well behind either. Sugar is Louisiana's No. 1 row crop, once processing is counted.

'There are other crops, like corn and soybeans, that may consume more acreage, but sugar is worth considerably more,' said Jim Simon, general manager of the American Sugar Cane League.

Sugar costs more to produce, but also brings in more money, he said.

This year's crop is still being harvested, but last year's was worth a total of $538 million, compared to $357 million for cotton, according to the LSU AgCenter.

The 2007 Sugar Bowl game between LSU and Notre Dame brought in $68.7 million, with an estimated economic impact of $126.7 million. With unexpectedly high numbers of Hawaii fans buying tickets, and Georgia a team that always brings an enthusiastic crowd, the New Year's Day match is likely to be bigger.