Our home-state New Orleans Saints don’t have to earn a privileged appearance in the Super Bowl before you consider going to what is, with all due respect to the Daytona 500, the biggest single-day sporting event in the country.
Every red-blooded American sports fan should move mountains if necessary to experience a Super Bowl and scratch it off his personal bucket list. In this age of ticket brokers, Snub Hub and the Internet, it really doesn’t take a parting of the seas or a miracle of winning the lottery to do it. Well, maybe you’ll have to win a mini-lottery. But it’s doable.
You have to give it serious consideration, especially when the NFL awards its championship spectacle to nearby Houston or New Orleans. The bottom line is it can be a simple, single-day in-and-out adventure that you’ll remember for a lifetime.
I’ve got three Super Bowls under my belt — two as a reporter and one strictly as a fan. All hold special memories, and all three were very different.
I had a fleeting thought about making it four with Super Bowl XLI in Houston this weekend. But life interrupted, and a return will have to wait.
The lure of New England and Tom Brady seeking a record fifth Super Bowl trophy against the formidable Falcons was tugging on me. But I’ll have to see history via the 55-inch flat screen.
I will tell why Brady’s Patriots will win as we progress.
My first-ever Super Bowl was No. 25 in Tampa. It was 1991, and I was doing TV and radio sports in the Bay Area. The Gulf War had just begun, and tensions were high across Tampa Bay, which is home to the strategic MacDill Air Base — a critical military base in the war effort.
No Super Bowl was ever staged at the outbreak of a military operation such as this. So, as you would guess, security was wide-ranging, layered and extremely tight. I recall having my media credentials scanned and triple-checked as I entered numerous check points. Armed military personnel worked side by side with local, state and federal law enforcement officers.
I wasn’t accustomed to working a sporting event, even as big as a Super Bowl, amidst machine guns, bulletproof vests and helicopters hovering above.
I worked radio row for the entire week before Super Bowl Sunday. It was a massive collection of radio stations from Tampa, New York and Buffalo, along with national networks, television stations and network set-ups from ESPN, CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC. There was one interview after another of the NFL’s elite players, coaches, Hall of Famers and media personalities — all there with a ready game prediction.
The week-long celebration included parties, events and press conferences. At one point, I couldn’t stand to look at another lobster tail or prime rib cutting table.
Patriotism ran high. The fighter jets that flew over the stadium at the conclusion of Whitney Houston’s national anthem had many looking for an American flag to wave. A different kind of excitement came when Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood’s game-winning field goal attempt with seconds on the clock sailed wide and the New York Giants walked away 20-19 winners.
In the bowels of old Tampa Stadium, I was on the front row of a postgame press conference featuring Giants defensive coordinator Bill Belichick. It was my introduction to his four-word answers, monotone delivery and subdued enthusiasm. Little did we all know this young Bill Parcells protégé would go on to win four Super Bowls and be on the verge of a record fifth Lombardi Trophy.
I haven’t forgotten to tell you why the Patriots will win. It’s coming.
My next Super Bowl was No. 31 in 1997, when the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots met in the SuperDome. Once again, Bill Parcells was on hand as head coach, but this time for the Pats.
It was amazing to me how much the whole Super Bowl extravaganza, with all its glory and glitz, had grown just in the six short years from SB 25 to SB 31.
Tampa had the beach-themed parties, the water vistas and Ybor City. It was like three or four spring breaks rolled into one.
New Orleans, on the other hand, had the French Quarter, the Riverfront, Canal Street, the grandeur of St. Charles, the music scene and, of course, the food. It was 10 Mardi Gras crammed into one week.
There were more official parties than I remembered from six years before; and definitely more unofficial parties that broke out in every French Quarter corner bar. You saw more celebrities from all walks of TV, sports, music and film. It had only been six years since New Orleans last hosted the event in 1990. But it seemed everyone had to be in the Crescent City for the Super Bowl.
If you took a national media, NFL player and corporate big shot poll, New Orleans would easily win as the best and favorite Super Bowl host city. I think the Top 4 would round out with Miami, San Diego and Tampa.
In 1997, New England had Parcells, who had won two Super Bowls with the Giants. But Green Bay had future Hall-of-Fame, record-setting quarterback Brett Favre from nearby Kiln, Miss. The Packers prevailed in a mostly one-sided game 35-21.
Parcells’ coaching tree would pick up where he left off, with Belichick in particular. Oh yeah, I did mention the Patriots would win another Super Bowl title. The whys are coming.
My third and last Super Bowl to this point was, of course, when hell nearly froze over and the Saints made it to No. 44 in South Florida to take on Peyton Manning and the Colts. After the NFC Championship win over Minnesota, I didn’t hesitate to begin the process of securing a game ticket.
My online search ended with a reputable ticket broker who had a single lower-level end-zone seat for $3,400. A few days later, I learned he needed to pair that seat up for a larger group. But he found me a single 20 rounds lower and knocked off $1,000.
Done deal.
I contacted an old friend (a former Lake Charles resident whom I met years before in Tampa) who lived nearby in Jupiter, Fla., home of Serena Williams and Tiger Woods. “Come on down,” he said. “The guest room is open and we can get caught up.”
When game day arrived, my buddy and his wife went to the stadium to tailgate and soak in some Super Bowl hype. Along the way, he hit his ATM for $1,500 just in case. After we split up, I figured they were soon on their way home. But his Louisiana roots got the best of him.
I got a text midway through the first quarter that they negotiated two upper-level tickets from a guy seeking at least $1,500 apiece. As the story went, my friend said $1,500 was all he had for both. Take it or leave it.
It proved that Super Bowl tickets can be had if you wait long enough, are in the right place at the right time and are willing to walk away if need be.
My friends walked right into the stadium.
Attending as a fan, minus the press pass and all that goes along with it, was different, but appropriate for my mindset. I was there to unburden myself of 44 years of suffering as a Saints fan. I needed to free my mind and soul of the “A’ints,” the bags, the endless stream of embarrassing losses, lousy players, coaches, management and ownership. I wasn’t there for the parties, beaches or bikinis. (OK, I did play some golf.) I was a hardened diehard who was finally raised from the misery of this woebegone franchise to become someone with true belief and hope. I was delivered from the depths of despair by Drew Brees and Sean Payton.
I walked around the grounds of Sun Life Stadium (actually closer to Fort Lauderdale than Miami), peeked in on the NFL Experience, stopped by a few of the musical stages and visited a couple of corporate parties I had access to. But all the while, I nervously monitored the minutes that ticked by ever so slowly till kickoff.
I was there for my own deep-seated need for personal redemption as a lifelong Saints fans.
I somehow recall the half-time show that featured the legendary rock band The Who. But Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend couldn’t wrap up soon enough. A shocking on-sides kick by the Saints to open the second half was coming.
Late in the fourth quarter, Saints defensive back Tracy Porter intercepted Manning and scampered 74-odd yards to seal the Saints’ 31-17 Super Bowl win and a Lombardi Trophy that for so long seemed so farfetched for this team.
The weekend I’m writing this marks the 7-year anniversary since that day in South Florida. It’s been a long 7 years, but for me the memories are fresh and vibrant. They allow me to hope that Brees and Payton can do it again.
With Super Bowl XLI only 2 hours away in Houston, this could be your last chance for a while to do it on the cheap. Think about it — game tickets, some food and souvenir money and no $2,000-dollar hotel bill.
From what I’m seeing, Super Bowl tickets are ranging from $19,000 each — you can be within arm’s reach of Brady — down to $5,000. I’m sure prices are being driven up because it’s the Patriots going for a record fifth Lombardi and Atlanta fans, flush with cash, seeking to back their Birds.
It’s been 12 years since Houston last hosted, and it may be another decade or so before the game comes back this close.
Remember SB 38? Ironically, these same Brady- and Belichick-led Patriots won their second Super Bowl in three years with a thrilling 32-29 victory over the Carolina Panthers, who were led by Lafayette-born and -raised quarterback Jake Delhomme.
New England’s Adam Vinatieri drilled a 41-yard field goal with four seconds on the clock for the game winner in one of the most thrilling championship games in memory. A then-record 144 million TV viewers watched as this Super Bowl became infamous over a “wardrobe malfunction” during the halftime show. Singer Justin Timberlake apparently was a bit overzealous with a dance move during a duet with superstar Janet Jackson. Out popped Jackson’s breast for all the world to see. But it was only a second before she covered up. It’s no international Russian Hacking scandal. But to this day, both Timberlake and Jackson deny it was a planned PR stunt; just an unplanned rip and tear.
Lady GaGa is the halftime star this time. But she normally doesn’t wear enough clothes to become concerned over a malfunction. So we’re safe from that possible controversy.
Come on! It’s time to get that Visa card ready or do what my Florida friends did and show up at NRG Stadium with cold hard cash. We’re talking priceless memories here. An entry on your bucket list.
And I did not forget. The Patriots will win simply because Tom Brady is G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time) and Bill Belichick will devise enough defensive schemes to stop Matt Ryan and the Falcons from scoring late in the game.
New England 38, Atlanta 34.
Comments are closed.