The endless college football bowl season is upon us. Beginning last weekend with the Myrtle Beach Bowl, and mercifully ending on January 8 with the College Football Playoff National Championship game, 43 games will be played.

No football game ever played, or ever to be played, will exceed the drama surrounding the Mosquito Bowl, played on insect-infested Guadalcanal in 1944. The 4th and 29th U.S. Marine Corp regiments faced off before their next stop, Okinawa.

The Mosquito Bowl evolved from a bold claim that Brown University and eventual New York Giants superstar John McLaughry made to his father. Young McLaughry claimed that the 4th Regiment could go toe-to-toe with the NFL champion Chicago Bears. McLaughry backed off a bit but still maintained that the 4th and the 29th combined could beat any team, anywhere.

To lift the Marines’ spirits, the brass OK’d a football game between the 4th and the 29th for Christmas Eve 1944. The regiments had long debated which would prevail if they ever met on the football field. By kickoff time, there was a regulation-size field with goalposts, programs with roster information, a marching band and more than a thousand spectators. The excitement was so high that the Marine Corps radio network broadcast........

© Yuma Sun