Dropping the ball is cool on only one occasion - New Year's Eve.

Growing up in the Midwest, I spent plenty of time watching the Times Square celebration on television. With Dick Clark presiding, we stared at that massive, glowing ball until it crawled to a halt, marking the official arrival of New Year's Day. We hugged, toasted one another and pretended that the picture on the screen was live, knowing full well it had been taped an hour ago on the East Coast. Sure, it seems phony now, but I'd rather watch a crystal ball drop an hour late than 1 minute of Donald Trump in the 21st century version of reality TV.

As a kid and an ardent college football fan, I also watched the party in New York with a bit of trepidation, knowing that in a few hours, a Big Ten team would probably drop the ball in the Rose Bowl. And it would not be cool at all - at least not in the Midwest.

During the late 60s and throughout the 70s, Pasadena was a trip through the thorns. As I went from junior high school to college, the Big Ten lost eight Rose Bowls in 10 appearances to the Pac-8 (later the Pac-10). The trend continued after that, with West Coast teams claiming nine of the next 10 meetings. Eventually, the Big Ten stood its ground, posting a 9-5 record until the traditional arrangement changed in 2002. As part of the Bowl Championship Series, a Big Ten-Pac 10 matchup is no longer guaranteed. Two years ago, for example, Texas beat Southern California to win the national championship.

Last year, though, we were "treated" to an old-school Rose Bowl. USC whipped Michigan, 32-18, in a game that looked as pretty as a leisure suit from 1976. To put it in terms that Dick Clark would have understood during his American Bandstand days, it didn't have a good beat, and I couldn't dance to it. I'd give it a zero.

If the oddsmakers are accurate, the ball will drop again in 2008, and right on the Big Ten's foot. Illinois goes to Pasadena as a 14-point underdog to Pete Carroll's Southern Cal Trojans. Not many people give the Illini a fighting chance against USC, which is healthy after midseason losses to Stanford and Oregon derailed the run to a national title. Here we go again - probably.

Now, there was something to be said for simply getting to the Rose Bowl back in the day. After all, it meant a team had won the Big Ten football title, and that's an accomplishment, whether you played for Iowa or Ohio State. My alma mater, Minnesota, hasn't done that for 47 years. Every other team in the league earned a conference championship in the ensuing years and then ventured west to Pasadena. Not the Gophers. Their last Rose Bowl appearance happened so long ago, Cro-Magnon man chiseled the final score into the wall of his cave.

At this stage of life, the state of Big Ten football doesn't worry me much. Nonetheless, as a lifelong Midwestern resident, I want to see the conference perform well. The roots I developed as a very young Big Ten fan still live. As a kid, I always rooted for Ohio State or Michigan or Purdue or Indiana in the big game.

And I also learned to live with a lot of frustration.

The script always seemed to be the same. A powerful, physically imposing Big Ten team would walk into the Rose Bowl as the favorite. Occasionally, it had a shot at the national championship. Then, a few hours after kickoff, as the sun fell behind the mountains near Pasadena, Woody Hayes or Bo Schembechler would storm into the night, while John McKay or Dick Vermeil celebrated. California dreaming, indeed.

Hayes did win a national title in the 1969 Rose Bowl when he led Ohio State past O.J. Simpson and Southern Cal. Then, he ran into a few problems. Jim Plunkett and Stanford ended the Buckeyes' perfect season during the 1971 game. Five years later, OSU blew another shot at No. 1 when it lost to Vermeil and UCLA after blowing out the Bruins in regular-season play.

Schembechler's title dreams died at the 1972 Rose Bowl against Stanford, thanks to a late field goal. And so it went.

Looking back, it was probably meant to be. The Pac-8/Pac-10 boasted college stars like Simpson, Plunkett, Ricky Bell, Lynn Swann and Warren Moon. Twenty-three players from the Southern Cal team that walloped Ohio State, 42-17, in the 1973 Rose Bowl moved on to professional football. The West Coast schools seemed to be quicker, more wide open offensively.

Times have changed, of course. The Rose Bowl is no longer the only battleground for the Big Ten and Pac-10, thanks the expansion of postseason opportunities. With pressure mounting for a true tournament at the highest level of the game, the bowls themselves may become artifacts of a bygone era.

As for me, I'll be watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve.

The question is, can Illinois rise to the occasion?

Contact Jim Sullivan at (319) 291-1434 or jim.sullivan@wcfcourier.com