(USA Today Sports Images)T. Boone Pickens has a lot of money, but to his credit, he is generous with a lot of it.

Pickens recently bought 4,000 tickets to the Oklahoma State-Gonzaga men's basketball game on Dec. 31 to be given out to Cowboys' fans, and he went and bought some more tickets Thursday -- this time to the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

Pickens' $25,000 donation will be used to buy tickets to be distributed to city of Dallas workers and their families.

(USA Today Sports Images)All bowl games give out some kind of gift package to players, and usually they're similar. Some kind of a nice watch, some sweats, sunglasses, maybe a gift card or a piece of popular electronics.

But some bowls like to mix it up. Sports Business Daily released a mostly complete list of bowl goodies for the players, and while plenty of the lists looked the same, there were some interesting additions.

[Play College Bowl Pick'em: Which teams do you think will win bowl games?]

Here's the best and most remarkable of the bowl gift season from Sports Business Daily's list:

(USA Today Sports Images)Punters are players too, just as capable of doing something to get themselves suspended as their offensive and defensive teammates.

LSU punter Brad Wing has been suspended for the Chick-fil-A Bowl against Clemson for a violation of team rules, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported. Wing could leave early for the NFL after his suspension, which is the most non-punter thing possible.

[Related: Oregon, NCAA reach impasse in football investigation]

(USA Today Sports Images)Gary Andersen's departure from Utah State might have been made more palatable by his determination to call every one of his players to tell them the news personally before he left.

Andersen had promised everyone he was staying. The university put out a release to announce it. That was on Nov. 30. That promise lasted 18 days.

A great opportunity opened up in that time. Wisconsin needed a head coach and Andersen took the job. But, when he took that job, Andersen handled the situation about as well as anyone has.

[Related: Coach Tommy Tuberville ditches recruits at dinner to take new job]

Business is business, but coaches like Todd Graham, Bobby Petrino and Tommy Tuberville left a vapor trail on their way to their new job. Andersen took the opposite approach. According to the Wisconsin State Journal's Tom Mulhern, who broke the news that Andersen was the Badgers' new coach, Andersen called every one of his players after he took the job. He made 106 calls and finished up at 2:30 a.m., Mulhern said.

That's a classy way to leave a team.

(USA Today Sports Images)Earlier this month, Michigan announced it is increasing its "seat donation" requirement. The term is laughable, and the thought behind it is too.

Wolverines fans have to "donate" between $4,000-$75 to keep their season tickets. According to MLive.com that's not out of line with other Big Ten schools (and other schools around the country) that charge seat license -- sorry, seat "donation" -- fees. All non-student seats in massive Michigan Stadium have a fee attached now.

When those Wolverines season-ticket holders in the Maize seats sign that seat-fee check for $375, up from $275 last year, keep this in mind: Michigan's football program made $85 million last year, and $62 million of that was profit, according to Forbes' report valuing college football programs.

Slideshow: 2012 College Football Team Valuations

So, when you pay that seat fee, or if you wonder why conferences like the Big Ten are adding Maryland or Rutgers to squeeze out a little bit more extra TV revenue even though no fan seems to want it and it doesn't make the conference's football product any better, it's because tens of millions of dollars in profit just isn't enough in amateur athletics these days.

(@uniwatch)Virginia Tech has tried some different things with its helmets this year. Instead of going with something really outlandish and wild for its bowl game, the Hokies are keeping it simple.

Virginia Tech will wear all-maroon matte helmets for the Russell Athletic Bowl, according to Paul Lucas, who writes the uniform-centric Uni Watch blog.

It appears from the pictures Lucas tweeted that the Russell Athletic Bowl sticker on the back is the only thing that stands out on the plain helmets.

(USA Today Sports Images)Gary Andersen was adamant this month that he was staying at Utah State, that the other offers were nice but when he looked into the eyes of his players he knew he needed to be with the Aggies.

Then Wisconsin came calling and, like many college coaches who have professed a desire to stay, he changed his mind.

Andersen will be the next coach at Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, ending a coaching search that began two weeks ago when Bret Bielema left for Arkansas.

New Temple coach Matt Rhule (USA Today Sports Images)

College programs have a few outlets for finding a new head coach, and one is mining the staffs of NFL teams. Two college programs turned to NFL assistants to fill their openings.

Temple hired New York Giants assistant offensive line coach Matt Rhule and Western Michigan has hired Tampa Bay Buccaneers receivers coach P.J. Fleck to lead their programs.

Even though both coaches come from the NFL assistant ranks, their paths to the jobs have been different.