Bacardi Bowl
| Bacardi Bowl (defunct) | |
|---|---|
| "Rhumba Bowl" | |
| Stadium | Almandares Park and La Tropical Stadium |
| Location | Havana, Cuba |
| Operated | 1907, 1910, 1912, 1921, 1937, 1946 |
The Bacardi Bowl was a college football bowl game played seven times in Havana, Cuba at Almandares Park and La Tropical Stadium. The games were also referred to as the Rhumba Bowl and were the climaxing event of Cuba’s annual National Sports Festival. The first five occurrences matched an American college team (all from the Deep South) against Cuban universities or athletic clubs. The 1937 game featured two American universities. The 1946 game—sometimes considered the first of the Cigar Bowl games—also matched an American college team (from the Deep South) against a Cuban university.
Italics denote a tie game
The first Bacardi Bowl in 1907 matched Louisiana State University against the University of Havana.
The 1912 Bacardi Bowl was scheduled as a two-game series in Havana featuring the Florida Gators against squads from two Cuban athletic clubs. It was Florida's first experience with postseason football.
The first game was held on Christmas Day, and the Gators defeated the Vedado Athletic Club 28–0. The second game, which pitted the Gators against the Cuban Athletic Club of Havana, was never finished. Florida head coach George E. Pyle realized during the first quarter that the game was being officiated using college football's pre-1906 rules, and while discussing this issue with the officials, he discovered that the head referee was the former coach of his opponent. Feeling that playing under those conditions was neither fair nor safe, Pyle pulled his team off the field and was promptly arrested for violating a Cuban law prohibiting a game's suspension after spectators' money had been collected. A trial was scheduled and Pyle was released on bail that evening, at which point he and the Gators quickly boarded a steamship for Tampa, an escape which caused the coach to be branded a "fugitive from justice" by Cuban authorities.
Bacardi Bowl officials declared that Florida had forfeited the game and listed it as a 1-0 win for the Cuban Athletic Club, while the University of Florida declared the contest a 1-0 forfeit win for the Gators. In later years, the incomplete game was dropped from the university's official football record, and the win over Vedado Athletic Club is not included among the program's official bowl game appearances.
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