The PlayStation® Fiesta Bowl was the best thing to happen to Arizona State football. And likewise, we're sure.
 
As the Fiesta Bowl turns 50, it is not a stretch to suggest that the Fiesta Bowl has been the most mutually beneficial bowl game in the world of the intersectional holiday showcases. When opportunity knocked in the Southwest — finally, some around here would say — both Arizona State and the bowl organizers rushed through.
 
The Fiesta Bowl provided Arizona State a place on the national stage, and the Sun Devils reciprocated with their high quality of play.
 
Conceived by a group of community leaders including Jack Stewart, Donald D. Meyers, Bill Shover and Karl Eller, the game came about after local businessmen had grown tired of seeing the Western Athletic Conference in general and the Sun Devils in particular snubbed in the postseason.
 
Arizona State recorded victories in the first three Fiesta Bowls, but the game that elevated both the Sun Devils and the Bowl came in Year 5, when the Sun Devils beat Nebraska, 17-14, on Dec. 26, 1975. ASU finished that season with half of a national championship, ranked No. 1 in the coaches' poll and No. 2 in the AP poll.
 
Those first five Fiesta Bowl games were the start of a beautiful relationship that has seen the Fiesta Bowl grow into a national destination spot, one of the coveted bowls in the College Football Playoff series.   
 
This golden anniversary has a strong maroon streak.
 
"I feel like the Fiesta Bowl opened everybody's eyes to ASU," said Danny White, who quarterbacked the Sun Devils to victories in the Bowl's first three games. "Those three Fiesta Bowls kind of put us on the map.
 
"Then the Fiesta Bowl kept it going. It was at the same level as some of those smaller bowls at the time. All of us who played in the first three have a sense of pride that might not be there if they had not done such a great job promoting the bowl. The only reason we are even talking right now is because of what those guys (civic leaders) did."
 
The Fiesta Bowl has played host to multiple national championship games, the first when No. 1 Miami and No. Penn 2 State met at Sun Devil Stadium on Jan. 2, 1987.
 
Through it all, it is easy to trace the Fiesta Bowl's path to the top.
 
Cue Arizona State, with its early statement wins.
 
"All through the '60s, we had good teams, but nobody wanted to play us or put us in a Bowl game because they had everything to lose and nothing to gain by beating little Arizona State out in the desert," former Sun Devil Kevin Woudenberg said.
 
The NFL knew all about Arizona State. From 1964 to 1976, 63 Arizona State players were taken in the NFL Draft. Charley Taylor, John Pitts, Ron Pritchard, J.D. Hill, Steve Holden, Woody Green, Mike Haynes and Larry Gordon were first-round picks. Danny White played two years in the World Football League before playing 13 years with the Dallas Cowboys. Taylor, Culp and Haynes are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
 
But it took the introduction of the Fiesta Bowl for the world to catch up.
 
White remembers the 45-38 victory over Florida State in the inaugural 1971 Fiesta Bowl … and he chuckles about his disobedience on the final drive.
 
After Florida State tied the game at 38, the Sun Devils took over with 4:44 remaining and methodically drove down the field, reaching the 1-yard line in the final minute. On 3rd-and-1, legendary ASU Head Coach Frank Kush sent in a rollout play for White.
 
"I was in the huddle, calling the play, "White said. "I looked into their faces. Steve Matlock has sweat and blood and mud. I called this rollout and Matlock just looks at me and said, 'Danny, bull. Run that ball right over us.' And I'm not going to argue with those guys."
 
White switched to a dive over the right side, and Woody Green scored his third touchdown of the day with 44 seconds in a 45-38 victory.
 
"I think they would have killed me if I'd have run the pass," White said. "It was self-preservation that got us that winning score."
 
White engineered victories over Missouri — another wild one, 49-35 — and Tony Dorsett's Pittsburgh the following two seasons before the Fiesta Bowl made its first national impact when Arizona State met Nebraska.
 
The Sun Devils had won the WAC again at 11-0, while Nebraska had had its national championship hopes dashed in a regular season-ending 35-10 loss at Oklahoma to fall to 10-1. Nebraska had declined the Fiesta Bowl's invitation before the Oklahoma game; afterward, the Fiesta Bowl offered again and the Cornhuskers agreed.
 
"I remember the first time we saw those guys, it was, 'Holy crap, those guys are huge,'" Sun Devils kicker Danny Kush said. "We may not have had the size, but I think we were mentally a lot tougher and we definitely were a lot quicker and a lot faster."
 
Kush's game-winning field goal late in the fourth quarter was the biggest kick of his career, but the distraction caused by the previous play — father Frank called a dive play over right guard on third down — relieved any pressure he might have felt.
 
"When that play started to go, I said, 'Son of a (gun), we're never going to make a first down on that. I am going to have to go in and kick the damn ball now.' I wanted us to get a touchdown," Kush said.
 
"I was more pissed off at the old man about calling a play. I didn't realize at the time he was moving the ball over to the center of the field. He was trying to give me as good a chance as possible. I was more irritated at him. So that was a good distraction for me."
 
With that victory capping the first five Fiesta Bowls, Arizona State had convinced any remaining skeptics that it belonged with the NCAA heavyweights. 
 
"I think the people saw that Arizona State really played solid football. It was not just a bunch of beer-drinking cowboys in Arizona," Kush said.