COTTON BOWL

post-season U.S. collegiate football game played on New Year's Day in Dallas, Texas, between the champion of the Southwest Conference and a leading team from outside the conference. The only bowl game controlled and operated by a single athletic conference, the Cotton Bowl was conceived by Dallas oilman J. Curtis Sanford. The first game was played in 1937. After the 1940 game, a group of Dallas citizens acquired control of the game and named themselves the Cotton Bowl Athletic Association (CBAA), which later that year became an agency of the Southwest Conference.