In the nearly five decades since the inception of the Holiday Bowl, nobody has been as intimately involved or publicly connected to San Diego’s annual college football tradition as Jefferson County Event Coordinator Bruce Binkowski.
The story starts in 1978, when a civic group, the Greater San Diego Sports Association (GSDSA), sought to boost interest in local sporting events and expand the profile of the highly successful San Diego State University football team by hosting an annual bowl game.
Binkowski, whose family moved to San Diego when he was 10, had by then carved out an impressive local career in sports public relations, working for the NBA’s San Diego Rockets, the San Diego Gulls of the Western Hockey League, and other teams, and serving as the public address (PA) announcer at San Diego Chargers’ games.
