Dumping Them Out: Rose Bowl + Friend Review

John Rich1/04/2026 11:47 PM

Welcome to another episode of Dumping Them Out. I feel like I've used way to much of this blog that most people don't read to talk about the Indiana Football Hoosiers, but it's not my fault that the Indiana Football Hoosiers keep doing awesome things like running Alabama out of the Rose Bowl. But before I get to football, a quick story about my formerly homeless friend.

l flew out to LA to attend the Rose Bowl this weekend. Stayed with a friend who I met when I lived out there in 2016. When I met him, he was a fresh off a decade of homelessness. The story he tells is that he was wrongfully arrested during Occupy LA and won a $10,000 settlement, which is how he got off the streets and into his first apartment. I even lived with him in that apartment for a few months. While I was living there, he was still going to random street corners on weekends to spange (i.e. beg for change) to help pay rent. He was really good at it too. He'd leave with his tent for a few days and come back with a few hundred bucks. The man knew how to find a good spare change spot.

At the end of my time living there, me and a different friend of mine started working this shitty door-to-door canvassing job. We did it for maybe 2-3 weeks before bailing on it. But before we quit we got my ex-homeless friend a job there too. And he didn't quit. He stuck with it. Last I heard before I moved back to Ohio was that he was actually really good at the job, and was making pretty good commissions.

Fast forward 10 years later. I hit him up after I bought tickets to the Rose Bowl just to see if he was going to be around. Without me even asking, he was adamant about how my wife and I should stay with him because he got a big new apartment with a guest bedroom, and that we could drive his Camero to the game, and that we wouldn't have to pay for ANYTHING while we were there because he would take care of it. And when my wife and I got there on New Year's Eve, within 5 minutes of entering his apartment he says, "Not to brag or anything but I'm a millionaire now."

Apparently his door-to-door canvassing company took off during covid. Their entire business model is to walk up to a random house, look for something broken, then knock on the door and say, "Hey we're doing work in the area (which was a lie). I noticed your gutters look like shit. Would you like a free estimate to fix them?" Then they'll hire a third-party company to do the job and up-charge the home owner a substantial percentage. So during covid, when everyone was spending all their time at home, and they all had their stimulus checks to burn, people started doing home repairs. The company grew like crazy. They opened multiple offices across Los Angeles. My ex-homeless friend (who allegedly was like the best door-to-door canvasser ever – I guess you don't have any shame in soliciting strangers when you've spent a large portion of your life begging for change) was promoted pretty high up within the company. He bought a bunch of bitcoin. Now he's rich.

But he still lives like a homeless guy. Was kinda fascinating to watch. He strictly drinks Buzz Balls and malt beverage tall boys. He has all the same struggling standup comic friends we had back when I knew him 10 years ago. He seems to spread the wealth and pay for all their shit. It was honestly really cool to see. The guy is crushing it. That is of course if he's not completely lying about everything. I'd be a fool to not consider that possibility.

Anyways… the Rose Bowl was pretty cool. It absolutely lives up to the hype when the team you're cheering for is in the midst of the greatest sports story in college football history, and beats the ever living piss out of Alabama. Now if I were an Alabama fan, and I flew across the country to watch my team not be competitive, I might be annoyed by things like the 90-minute long bottleneck to get into the stadium. I swear the Rose Bowl has about 8 total metal detectors to get nearly 100,000 fans through. I also might be annoyed that the parking traffic was so bad that I settled for spending a stupid amount of money to park in some random person's front yard. But when your team wins 38-3, and you're sitting a couple row behind some obnoxious Alabama fans doing choreographed first down chants in their SEC belts…

That stuff doesn't bother you so much. And this scene starts to look like the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

It didn't even rain during the game like it was supposed to. Weather couldn't have been more perfect. The whole experience almost made me completely forget that I spent $400 on tickets I could have gotten the day before for $80. That's why you always track your ticket prices on Gametime folks. Instead of emotionally buying them the minute the playoff field is announced like I did. But still… it was worth it. I got to watch Indiana win the Rose Bowl along with what must be the biggest gathering of Hoosiers fans to ever watch an Indiana football game in person.

So if your team is ever in the Rose Bowl, and you know you're going to win because the CFB Playoff Committee matched you up with the equivalent of the Maryland Terrapins, and you have a millionaire homeless friend to stay with, I couldn't recommend it enough.