Bowl trip special to local trio

PARKERSBURG - A friendship, kindled by a granddaughter and daughter playing basketball together in college, turned into an offer too good to pass up when it came to Belpre residents Don Davis and Bob Randolph attending this year's Rose Bowl, won by Ohio State over Oregon 26-17.

Joe Smith of Parkersburg served as tour guide for five days around Los Angeles and the southern California area on his self-proclaimed ''Hillbilly Tours'' for Davis and Randolph, both Ohio Stadium ushers for the Buckeyes' home football games.

Smith's daughter, Sararose, and Davis' granddaughter, Katie, both ''played basketball at West Virginia Wesleyan and then went on to get their masters, so they lived together for about six years,'' explained Davis. His son, former Belpre basketball star Skip Davis, also got in on Smith's tour and was able to see the Rose Bowl game after flying out to California from Cleveland for the game.

Davis added the Smith family ''took me in, and I went to all the basketball games with them. They more or less adopted me. I would never have been able to see my granddaughter play like I did if it hadn't been for them.''

Ushering at OSU began for Davis in 1986 while Randolph joined the ranks in 1990.

''I started out on the gates, tearing tickets and went from there,'' said Davis, who even ''ran the elevators for a couple years.''

Meanwhile, Randolph's assignment for the last five years has been the recruit room, where perspective recruits and their families gather when they make visits to OSU to see a Buckeye game.

Randolph says he knew that the highly-recruited Terrelle Pryor, now the quarterback at OSU, was going to play for the Buckeyes since the first time he saw him in the recruit room four years ago and asked him where he was going and he said, ''I'm coming here.'' And Pryor's response to Randolph's question never changed the other times they talked in the recruit room.

Randolph, 73, went to the last Rose Bowl the Buckeyes were in in 1997, when they edged Arizona State, 20-17, and the 1999 Sugar Bowl, a 24-14 win over Texas A&M, while this was Davis' first bowl game. So Davis, 85, noted, ''I've marked that off my bucket list now.''

Talk about attending the Rose Bowl began after they were returning from the overtime win over Iowa that clinched the bowl berth. ''I said, 'Let's go to the Rose Bowl,' and Bob was ready to go,'' said Davis.

And after Davis mentioned to Smith about the two planning to go to the Rose Bowl, a couple days later Smith decided he was going to go too. And once Smith got involved, said Davis, ''Joe got on his computer and set up everything for us to go - transportation, tickets, lodging, rental car.''

They flew out of Charleston on Tuesday, Dec. 29 for the Friday game, and ''once we go out there, Joe took us everywhere.''

On Wednesday, they went to Dodger Stadium because ''Skip was always a Dodger fan, grew up a Dodger fan,'' said Davis of his son. ''That was his one dream - to see Dodger Stadium. We were able to get in and walk around.''

Later Wednesday, they drove down to the Rose Bowl to see it, and then through Beverly Hills to see the stars' homes before going to Hollywood to see the stars on the Walk of Fame.

Thursday, they went back to the Rose Bowl, bought souvenirs and just mingled around, ''meeting Ohio State fans from all over the country,'' said Davis.

Then it was off on a drive through Malibu Canyon down to Pepperdine University, and then to the free Bash at the Beach OSU alumni party at Newport Beach, where they had ''45,000 on the boardwalk there,'' said Randolph.

''A sea of red is all you could see,'' added Davis. ''They estimated there were 50,000 Buckeye fans out there.''

They also went to Pauley Pavilion for Skip, a retired high school basketball coach, to see where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played and John Wooden coached for UCLA.

At the Rose Bowl game, there was a total of 25,000 ''official'' OSU fans in attendance. That was the university's ticket allotment, although Davis said there were an ''estimated 50,000'' Buckeye fans at the game. ''You could see nothing but red through about two-thirds of the crowd,'' he added.

They didn't go to the Rose Parade on New Year's Day morning before the game in the afternoon, but instead waited until the day after the game to go see all the floats that were parked in one place, then flew home.

''It was just a wonderful trip - something I'll never forget - and we got to see more than anybody on these chartered or alumni trips would see,'' said Davis.

''We would have paid a lot more and seen a lot less,'' added Randolph.

''Joe knew California, he had friends out there, so had been there before,'' said Davis, ''He knew every place - where to go, what to see, where to eat.''

And they stayed a lot closer than most on the official tours - in Torrance, just a half-hour from Pasadena and 15 minutes from the airport.

Smith, 59, enjoyed the trip too, ''just hanging out with my senior citizen buddies. Since I'm soon to be retired, I have to hang out with these guys to find out what you do then. They're two good people to teach me how.''

Smith says it was when the three were watching the Michigan game on TV that Don and Bob mentioned they were going to go to the Rose Bowl game

''So I got on-line, did some research and found out we could go a lot cheaper than the $2,800 tours that we couldn't afford,'' said Smith. ''So I set things up for us to go.''

Smith had been to the Rose Bowl before - with a friend of his from Seattle for a regular-season game five years ago when UCLA played Washington.

Other places Smith took them on his tour were the Santa Monica pier, Venice Beach, Muscle Beach and Rodeo Drive, plus - as his senior buddies said - ''all the best places to eat.''

I've been known to know where food's at,'' replied Smith, who took them to the famed Paradise Cove restaurant in Malibu after the Buckeye win. ''I'm an adopted fan of Ohio State because of these two guys - and when they play Michigan.

''We saw a lot in four days. That's what you've got to have in this country today: a GPS - we didn't get lost once - and somebody that knows where to go eat.''

Smith has been a teacher in the Wood County school system for 28 years, and is in his fourth year at Vienna Elementary. He is the current 2010 Teacher of the Year in Wood County.

''So I look at our little adventure as going on a field trip to California at Christmas time with my buddies,'' said Smith.