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FUN AT THE ICE PALACE 2/5/2011 7:30:32 AM
Super Bowl XLV is about as inconsequential an event as we could have. What possible alteration in the scheme of things can occur if twenty-two grown men give each other concussion? Will the outcome bring peace to the Middle East? Will it create solvency for Social Security? Will it bring our best and brightest home any sooner? Will it guarantee a second term for Barack Obama?
My family had abandoned Ohio by the time I was seven, but for many years I secretly harbored the fantasy I would achieve gridiron fame at Ohio State University. Upon graduation (barely) from high school, OSU was as alien to my future as IBM, MIT, NASA, the CIA, RCA, the CCC, the AMA, the TVA, or the ACLU.
However, notwithstanding my 6-foot 1¼-inch, 122-pound frame, and my resemblance to a strand of overcooked spaghetti, I went out for football in my freshman year. Straight-faced, I asked the crude and mean coach if he saw me starting on the Varsity or Junior Varsity?
Equally straight-faced, he benevolently spit, “Get outta my sight, you Barelli reject, and before you go, drop and gimme twenty, you hookworm!”
Although my number was never called in a real game, it should count for something that I showed up for a full three days of pre-season practice.
The year was 1945, and as the war was ending, many young men returned to high school in search of the diploma denied. And a number of those fellows, of which several were as much as six or seven years older than I, had to “go out” for something — quite naturally, they wound up on the football team.
One such full-grown man was Frankie DeNunsio, a hirsute behemoth who had survived D-Day as a U.S. Army Ranger, while scaling the cliffs of Omaha Beach’s Pointe du Hoc and winning the Distinguished Service Medal, two bronze stars and a Purple Heart. He was quickly anointed our starting fullback, and the first day of practice I was sent in to play defensive end — the sadistic coach’s idea of fodder for our offensive backfield.
DeNunsio was handed the ball on the first play and came directly at me. Determined to impress the coach (or anyone watching) I planted myself firmly in his path and absorbed the collision without flinching. DeNunsio, to everyone’s amazement (including his own,) bounced backwards and sat down with a thud: he had gained less than two feet from scrimmage!
“Jeez, kid, you okay?” the coach was saying as I came to.
Against serious advice I attended practice faithfully the next day, but the time was taken up mostly just tossing the ball around and breathing heavily from minor calisthenics and wind sprints. Although wisely scratched from the roster, I was determined to remain part of the action and travel with the team; I applied for (and got) a job I doubt anyone else wanted — yearbook photographer. I even provided my own camera: a Kodak 620 Brownie my father was going to throw out.
Frankie DeNunsio never made it to college or the NFL (he was probably too old by the time he graduated from high school,) but he did become my friend. I remember him saying once in 1956 while we were doing shots at a local bistro they should have a major World Series-type game between the two best professional teams in football.
“Whadda they gonna call it?” I wondered, spilling tequila on my Nehru jacket.
“How I know? Maybe the Super Duper Pooper Bowl,” he snarled. “The league’s in the toilet, anyway.”
DeNunsio turned out to be somewhat clairvoyant. The first World Championship game was held on January 15, 1967 between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs — I was 36 and Frankie was God-only-knows how old. The extravaganza wasn’t called “Super Bowl” until Game Numero III on January 12, 1969 (that was the Joe Namath battle against the Baltimore Colts — yes, Virginia, the Colts were in Baltimore before they went to Indian-no-place.)
Anyway, Super Bowl XLIV last year is now history and the New Orleans Saints embarrassed the peripatetic Colts; we hung up our team shirts and jackets and put away our Mardi gras beads and tailgate equipment until the dismal SEC season started in late summer of 2010.
2010’s professional classic in Miami, however, may not have been the greatest football game ever played, but it was certainly one of the most exciting in recent memory — so much so, it was actually better than even the best TV commercials, which, sadly, could not be listed in such an elite category, except arguably for the Betty White/Abe Vigoda/Snickers entry. A few others managed to achieve distinction ranging from stupid and tasteless, all the way up to awful — Budweiser’s human bridge, Doritos’ tumbling casket and something about pantsless men come to mind.
Mentally reviewing the game, I have to give the zebras the benefit of the doubt as they seemed to overlook a flagrant penalty against Peyton Manning when, while attempting to tackle Tracy Porter (who ran 74 yards for a coffin-sealing touchdown after intercepting Manning’s errant pass,) the Colt’s quarterback appeared to be “blocked in the back” by the Saint’s Will Smith and knocked out of the play.
That blatant infraction was seen by hundreds of fans and shown repeatedly on TV — but ignored by officials and commentators. Had it been flagged by the zebras, as it should have, it might have changed the outcome considerably — “might” being the operative word.
It was a no-brainer picking Drew Brees as the MVP, even though Archie Manning, Peyton’s dad, had once been the Saint’s star quarterback (talk about rubbing salt in the wound!)
Actually, most astute sporting types in my circle favored giving the accolade to Tim Tebow — a majority leaned toward the Florida U. Heisman winner (2009) for his promotional efforts attracting TV viewers (if only out of curiosity) to their sets. Whether you are Pro-Choice or Pro-Life (and a few SEC coaches now secretly harbor concerned thoughts) you have to admit that Tebow, with the gratitude of CBS, may have been at least partially responsible for their incredible Nielsen numbers,
My mother-in-law, for example, who doesn’t know football from curling, wouldn’t have missed Super Bowl XLIV for a winning lottery ticket; she admittedly watched because Tebow said she should. “That fellow Jim Elbow is a great American,” she said, sounding suspiciously like Sean Hannity. “Why he don’t run for president, I’ll never know!”
Wait, Doris Louise, just you wait.
In the meantime, let’s see what happens this year with the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers at ice-bound Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, TX. I got Green Bay by 3 1/2 points from Jeremiah “Fingers” LaFollet in Las Vegas, but thanx to Ben Roethlisberger and his off-season escapades in Georgia, I suspect the women in my house will be rooting for OSU.
