SUPER BOWL XL
Super Sunday beckons. It’s now a secular
holiday. Highest television ratings of the year.
New commercials introduced at over $2 million
a spot. Halftime extravaganza watched by hundreds
of millions around the globe. Personal schedules
everywhere modified to accommodate what is now
a cultural spectacle, as opposed to a sporting
event. Sunday School instruction is canceled.
Weekend men’s basketball leagues take
a hiatus. Record amounts of dollars are wagered.
Copious amounts of pizza and beer are consumed.
It’s really quite extraordinary. 40 Super
Bowls. Almost 2500 journalists will be there.
Far more than are covering the war in Iraq.
Aye carumba!
I’ll admit to watching the first Super
Bowl back in 1967 when the Packers beat the
Chiefs 35-10, as a hung-over Max McGee caught
two touchdown passes. It wasn’t called
the Super Bowl. It was the AFL/NFL World Championship
Game. It was played at the Los Angeles Coliseum
before tens of thousands of empty seats. It
was carried by both NBC and CBS. Sports fans
no doubt all have their favorite memories of
Super Bowls past. Except for maybe Cleveland
fans. I’ve always followed the New York
Giants, going back to when Y.A Tittle was their
quarterback (I was very, very, very young back
then.). So the Giant’s win in 1987 over
Denver was special for me.
The only Super Bowl I missed was in 1991, when
I was in a fighting hole outside a Marine position
in the desert during the first Persian Gulf
War. Naturally, it was another Giants win that
I missed. But Armed Forces radio played Whitney
Houston’s rendition of the national anthem
for weeks to follow!
Super Bowl XIX in 1985 featured the 49ers and
the Dolphins. Montana vs. Marino. I was in uniform
at the time, at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare
Training Center in Northern California. Naturally,
we had liberty on Super Sunday and eight of
us drove to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, to a huge hotel
that had a facility that held hundreds and hundreds
of fans. Sports betting is legal in Nevada.
After serious analysis of the match-up, the
Marines bet substantial sums of money on the
Dolphins and Marino, who had just completed
the best year any quarterback had ever had.
We got a table in the middle of the vast facility
and began to loudly cheer for our investment
to pay off. We quickly discovered that we were
an island of Miami fans in the midst of countless
49er fans, who had driven from the San Francisco
Bay Area to bet on the 49ers. Unintimidated,
we sounded off for Miami, which only made us
targets for the 49er mob. Naturally, the 49ers
romped. Happy San Francisco fans sent numerous
drinks to our table throughout the second half.
A Marine recruiting commercial aired in the
fourth quarter, and most of the SF fans in the
huge hall rose to give us a standing ovation.
My favorite Super Bowl memory! OK – A
Super Pick I should have known this would happen.
After doing a column on picking NFL winners,
and guessing correctly at an 83% clip (including
Chargers over Colts) I apparently established
undeserved credibility as a football expert
(see archived Sport-Thoughts column for 12/15/05
at www.weirs.com).
As there seems to be a modicum of interest in
a prediction, here it is. Steelers 23 Seahawks
17. Remember that this is N.H., not Nevada,
and see above comments re: Miami Dolphins!
Michael Moffett is a Professor of Sports Management
at the New Hampshire Technical Institute in
Concord. His e-mail address is sports@weirs.com |
