Rose Bowl

Fencing and lighting around the Rose Bowl will be improved with money approved last week by the Board of Directors. Directors approved transferring $100,000 from the city's Golf Course Fund to begin the project. The board also transferred a $42,000 contract to assess the feasibility of an $8.3-million Rose Bowl press box improvement plan. The consulting contract was moved from Laventhol & Horwath, which recently declared bankruptcy, to Price Waterhouse.

The Wisconsin Badgers, led by Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne, are scheduled to arrive in Southern California tonight to begin preparation for the Rose Bowl. Starting Sunday, they will practice at the Coliseum before taking part in the usual whirlwind of bowl-related events. The Badgers will participate in the Beef Bowl at Lawry's on Sunday, visit Disneyland on Monday and go to the City of Hope in Duarte Tuesday.

More than 55,000 tickets have been sold for Sunday's soccer doubleheader at the Rose Bowl and a sellout of more than 90,000 is expected, organizers said Wednesday. The U.S. plays Mexico at 12:30 p.m. for the U.S. Cup '96 tournament title. At 3:30 p.m., the Los Angeles Galaxy plays the Tampa Bay Mutiny in a Major League Soccer match.

The viability of the Rose Bowl will be a discussion topic at the NFL owners meetings next week in Phoenix, but there will be no formal presentation touting the stadium as a pro football solution. There was a possibility that a Rose Bowl contingent, led by investment banker John Moag, would deliver an encore presentation to all 32 owners. Moag and his associates addressed a smaller group of owners, including the so-called Los Angeles task force, at a meeting two weeks ago in Palm Beach, Fla.

Until last Saturday, it appeared that the teams in the 88th Rose Bowl college football game in Pasadena would be Miami and Florida. What? The Hurricanes and Gators? They must be talking about the Orange Bowl in Miami. Since 1947, the Rose Bowl has matched the champions of the Midwest's Big 10 conference and the Pacific 10. Alas, the 2002 Rose Bowl will feature two teams picked by computer to play for the so-called national championship.

Barry Alvarez isn't coming back to coach Wisconsin for one game because he wants to boost his chances of getting into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame. Alvarez is already in it -- he was inducted in 2009. Wisconsin's athletic director is returning to the Rose Bowl sidelines, he says, because he was asked. After learning Tuesday that Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema was leaving before the bowl game for the head coach job at Arkansas, Alvarez said senior linebacker Mike Taylor called and asked Alvarez to coach the Badgers against Stanford in the Rose Bowl.