The Palm Bowl was a football game played seven times at McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium in

McAllen, Texas McAllen is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Hidalgo County. It is located at the southern tip of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Mexican border. The city limits extend south to the Rio Grande, acros ...

between 1978 and 1985. The first two contests (1978 and 1979) decided the NAIA Football National Championship, and the last five (1981 through 1995) decided the NCAA Division II Football Championship. The bowl folded after the NCAA moved the Division II championship to

Braly Municipal Stadium Tom Braly Municipal Stadium is a 14,215-seat stadium in Florence, Alabama. It is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the University of North Alabama North Alabama Lions and the Florence High School Falcons. It also host ...

Florence, Alabama Florence is a city in, and the county seat of, Lauderdale County, Alabama, Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the state's northwestern corner, and had a population of 40,184 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Florence is l ...

in 1986.

History

On October 26, 1978, the

National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to their ...

(NAIA) and the McAllen Chamber of Commerce held a joint press conference announcing a "multi-year contract" for the bowl to host the NAIA football national championship. The game was initially called the City of Palms Bowl (after McAllen's nickname, the City of Palms) but the name was soon shortened to the less cumbersome Palm Bowl. McAllen officials were keen to use the game to attract tourism and actively sought to have it televised nationally. The 1979 game appeared on

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

(then in its first year of operation) with a

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overhead. In September 1980 the third edition of the bowl was cancelled because members of the

Lone Star Conference The Lone Star Conference (LSC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Member institutions are located in the South Central states, with schools in Texas ...

, including Texas A&I (today Texas A&M Kingsville) and Southwest Texas State (today Texas State), the two football-playing colleges closest to McAllen, had begun to transition from the NAIA to NCAA Division II. Their departure from the NAIA led bowl organizers to conclude that "it wouldn't be feasible financially" for them to continue to host the NAIA championship in McAllen. In May 1981, the bowl's organizers (by then incorporated as Palm Bowl, Inc.) secured the NCAA Division II championship game for McAllen. The five-year contract called for the bowl to be televised nationally on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

, with a local blackout. The local press referred to the 1981 game as "Palm Bowl III," confirming that it was a resumption of the original bowl rather than an entirely new initiative. It drew the largest-ever Palm Bowl crowd (9,415) to see Southwest Texas State win the title. After another good turnout witnessed the Bobcats repeat in 1982, the next three games did not feature a Lone Star Conference team and attendance suffered as a result.

North Dakota State North Dakota State University (NDSU, formally North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences) is a public land-grant research university in Fargo, North Dakota, United States. It was founded as North Dakota Agricultural Colle ...

ended up playing in four of the five Palm Bowls that decided the D-II title, winning two and losing two. The NCAA's arrangement with the Palm Bowl expired after the 1985 game, and

(home of 1985 runner-up

North Alabama North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Several geographic definitions for the area exist, with all descriptions including the nine counties of Alabama's Tennessee Valley region. The North Alabama Industrial Development Associ ...

) outbid McAllen for the next contract. Palm Bowl, Inc., cited uncertainty over whether the game would continue to be televised nationally as the reason for not submitting a more competitive bid. The organization was still in the black financially when it dissolved, after failing to attract another game to be held under the Palm Bowl name.

Game results

References

External links

NCAA Division II National Football Championship history
{{NCAA Division II football conference navbox Defunct college football bowls McAllen, Texas NCAA Division II Football Championship 1981 establishments in Texas 1985 disestablishments in Texas Recurring sporting events established in 1981 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 1985