Fiesta Bowl founder, ASU recruiter Donald Dupont dies at 89
Donald Dupont, one of nine founders of the Fiesta Bowl and an Arizona State University recruiter, died June 29. He was 89.
Early life
Dupont was born in Dubuque, Iowa, on Aug. 7, 1929, to Ralph and Margaret Dupont. He had three younger sisters.
Dupont was always interested in sports, becoming the undefeated Golden Gloves boxing champion in high school and playing intramural sports in college.
He earned an accounting degree from Loras College in 1951 and served in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1953, when he was deployed to Toyko during the Korean War.
After returning from the military, he became an accountant at the Arthur Andersen firm in Chicago.
In 1954, he married Janet Bahl. They were married for 40 years before she died of pancreatic cancer in 1995.
Dupont was transferred to Phoenix in 1969 to run Andersen’s Phoenix office, and he threw himself into civic life. He became a recruiter at ASU’s School of Accountancy. A Don Dupont Faculty Excellence Award was later established in his honor.
He was also the local president of Junior Achievement, which mentors high-school students in business-related projects, and chairman of the Foundation for Senior Adult Living.
Creating the Fiesta Bowl
According to his son Michael Dupont, Donald Dupont’s most satisfying achievement was helping to create the Fiesta Bowl in 1971.
At the time, there were only a handful of NCAA-approved postseason college football games, and there was only one — the Rose Bowl — located in the Western United States.
According to his son, the NCAA had little interest in starting a new one.
Andersen client Jack Stewart, who owned Camelback Inn Resort, invited Dupont to join a small group trying to create the Fiesta Bowl when he learned of Dupont’s interest in sports, Michael Dupont said. Dupont became treasurer of the group, acquiring the bowl’s nonprofit status and contributing all of the early accounting work through his firm.
With the help of then-U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell and the philanthropic promise to give a percentage of bowl profits to support the fight against substance abuse, the group won NCAA approval.
The Fiesta Bowl, now almost 50 years old, has hosted multiple national championship games and generated an estimated $2.75 billion for Arizona’s economy over the past 12 years, giving $12.5 million to charity over the past eight years, according to their website.
Dupont was Fiesta Bowl president from 1979-80 and invited the University of Arizona to make its first appearance at the bowl.
He turned down a contract to have second-place teams from the Big Ten and the Pac-10 conferences play at the annual game, not wanting to give up the bowl’s independence to select its own teams, Michael Dupont said.
Because of this decision, the Fiesta Bowl was able to stage national championship games between Penn State and Miami in 1987 and Notre Dame and West Virginia in 1989, cementing the bowl’s national standing and reputation, according to his son.
Later life
Dupont was promoted to Andersen’s world headquarters in 1982, and he and his wife moved to Palatine, Illinois, where he eventually retired in 1990 and continued to do civic engagement activities.
In 2012, he moved back to Dubuque, where he died surrounded by his family.
Dupont is survived by his sister, Patricia Lange of Rockford, Illinois; his daughters, Anne Dupont of Centennial, Colorado, and Jill Dupont of Duluth, Minnesota; his sons, Michael Dupont of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Mark Dupont of Chicago; and his granddaughters, Kaitlin (Thomas) Boileau of San Jose, California, and Maureen Phenix of Fort Collins, Colorado, as well as many nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. July 9 at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church at 2001 St. Joseph St. in Dubuque.
Donations in Dupont’s memory can by made to the Loras Fund or the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque.