When Don Meyers and his wife Deede sat down with their family for their Christmas dinner last week, he said, "It's wonderful to have our six grown children all here." Deede said, "Actually, you have seven children, and that one's grown up, too."

The seventh child, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, turns 34 years old Friday. Meyers, 72, not only started the game, he changed the state of postseason football. For decades, New Year's Day belonged to the Big Four: the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Cotton.

"We used to go to the NCAA convention in January," Meyers said. "They (the Big Four) would have their own meeting, and the rest of the bowls would have our meeting. They treated us like stepchildren."

In 1981, Meyers pushed the NCAA to allow the Fiesta Bowl to move to Jan. 1. The NCAA postseason committee denied the request. Meyers appealed it to the NCAA Executive Committee, the organization's ruling body.

"When I walked into the room," Meyers said, (NCAA executive director) Walter Byers was way down at the other end." Byers, a taciturn man, ruled the NCAA by fiat.

"He had hired me two years earlier to win an antitrust case against the NFL," Meyers said. "He gets up out of his chair, walks over and puts his arm around me. We talked for five minutes. Everybody thought we were talking about the appeal. He was just telling me how pleased he was with the results of the antitrust case."

Meyers presented his case for the Fiesta Bowl to move. Byers announced, "I've heard all I want to hear." The Fiesta Bowl won its appeal and moved to Jan. 1 that season.

Five years later, Meyers muscled the game to the top. Undefeated, No. 2 Penn State agreed to play in the game. However, undefeated, No. 1 Miami wanted to stay home, play in the Orange Bowl and collect an additional $2 million. To lure the Hurricanes to the southwest, Meyers went and asked NBC if it would consider moving the game to Friday night, Jan. 2.

Meyers had to convince the entertainment division to take Miami Vice, then one of the top-rated programs, off the air for a football game. "I told them they could show Miami Vice the following week. They only have 26 shows a year. They went along with it. That was what got (Miami coach) Jimmy Johnson to come out here, playing in prime time."

Meyers and his volunteers raised the money to match the Orange Bowl's payout. Johnson brought the football version of Miami Vice to Sun Devil Stadium, where Penn State won a dramatic 14-10 upset.

By the mid-1990s, the Fiesta Bowl had replaced the Cotton Bowl among the Big Four. It is no small point of pride out here that the Fiesta held the first BCS championship game four seasons ago. "The four big bowls were a little bit complacent," said Meyers, now an emeritus member of the game's board of directors. "We came along, and they were just complacent."

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.