AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2008 > January > 29
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Staying home for the Super Bowl … thankfully
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Things I Won’t Miss Not Being at Super Bowl 42 (they’ve played so many of these things I’ve lost track of the Roman numerals):
• Standing for press ID photos. (You feel like convict No. 8473658698 checking into state prison. And your picture comes out looking like one.)
• Catching buses to wherever, standing in line again. (You think you’re going to visit one of the teams for interviews. Careful, you may wind up in Surprise — that’s a suburb of Phoenix.)
• The interview, such as it is. Players are seated at tables with name cards. Forget Brady or Moss or Welker. There’s a table named Hochstein, but who is he and what do you ask him? I think I’ll wait till we get to the Giants.
• Media Lounge: Somehow it seems the same guys are always there, and the fat guys spend more time around the food tables. If their editors could see them now. When do they work?
• Finding a place to have dinner. Just try making a reservation, if you enjoy taking a shot in the dark. And remember, this is a cockeyed time zone out in Phoenix. Careful, you may wind up in Queen Creek.
• Careful wearing your press badge outside the hotel. Guys like characters out of “Guys and Dolls” will buttonhole you. “Got any tickets, buddy?” (Want to know the truth? I quit buying when the price reached 500 bucks. My wife said, “If I don’t go, do I get the money?” Sounded like a good deal to me.)
• Finding a place to play golf. A guy named Nick used to run a tournament for star players, and it was fun if you got a nice linebacker or defensive back. But get a 315-pound lineman who couldn’t hit the ball out of his awesome shadow, and who tried to show you how to putt, you were in for a wearisome day. I know. I did.
• Oh, those Tuesdays. Teams take turns being interviewed on the field. All sorts of creatures crowded into the stadium trying to ask questions about favorite hip-hop and sex preferences, and it’s like being part of a herd. It’s a lousy carnival, guys crowding and shoving, and dudes with no credentials and no manners. One year, a 12-year-old carrying a mike and some kind of TV accreditation showed up and got more attention than the playing stars. Mainly, it’s interviewers interviewing interviewers.
• The Friday night blowout, sometimes called the Media Party, but that’s mainly so it can be written off as “entertainment.” More noise than the ears can stand, longer food lines than we used to have in the Navy, team owners and hangers-on roped off from the great unwashed. The best of these was my last, the Henry Ford Museum at Detroit, and the worst, right here in Atlanta. It was awful.
• The annual head coaches’ press conferences, held each Friday. Bound to be a thigh-slapper this year with these stand-up jokesters, Bill Belichick and Tom Coughlin. Not a grin in a carload.
• The game. First, you try to get there, played at the University of Phoenix Stadium, west of downtown. I could find the stadium on the map, but I couldn’t find the University of Phoenix. They are everywhere. There’s one, or more, in Atlanta, but they don’t have stadiums. In fact, I don’t know what the University of Phoenix does.
• The after-game. This is hellish. Try elbowing into one of the interview sessions, herd-time again. It’s right on deadline. What you get is a constant stream of interview printouts, for one and all. Enterprising journalism? That went out the door after Max McGee caught those two passes and Green Bay suffocated Kansas City.
• OK, you’ve had your fun. Get to Sky Harbor, check your bags, stand in line one more time; your flight is 45 minutes late, and it’s snowing back home. Where else are you going to have such fun!
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Furman Bisher
Truth’s stranger than fiction in sports
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN…
10: The “Oxygen” channel, which says it is “rewriting the rulebook for women’s television,” is debuting a new reality series with Deion Sanders and his second wife, called, “Deion and Pilar: Prime Time Love.” Just one question: Do the execs at Oxygen realize this is the same guy who, while dating his first wife, Carolyn, once said of his tastes in female company: “I can’t be seen with no seahag”?
9: According to scientists, an asteroid at least 500 feet long is approaching earth and will make a close pass next week. But, alas, it will miss Fayetteville, Ark.
8: Go ahead. Take the Giants and 12. I’ll take Bill Belichick and two weeks to prepare.
7: It’s comical watching Roger Clemens and his mouthpieces scramble to sway public opinion in drug allegations. Now comes a 49-page, 18,000-word statistical breakdown of his career, titled, “Analysis by Hendricks Sports Management.” The Hendricks, as it so happens, would be his agents.
6: I just skimmed the document (which you can find at http://www.rogerclemensreport.com). In short, it attempts to convince the reader that it’s not at all unusual that Clemens, after a slide with Boston, had a career rejuvenation in the late 1990s and has pitched with success well into his 40s. But if you’re looking for the nugget that dismisses the notion he took HGH and/or steroids to help get him through those workouts, it’s not there.
5: Forget the reports that Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson have broken up. E-Gossip (“Celebrity Dish, Served Daily.”) has photographic evidence that they’re still together! http://www.egossip.com/celebrity/jessica-simpson-and-tony-romo-booze-it-hollywood-7580. I provide this information only if Giants’ fans will need something to look forward to after Sunday.
4: Did you know that Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson have won the same number of playoff games?
3: Comrade Mark Bradley made a good case why the Hawks are in worse shape than the Thrashers in the Atlanta Spirit House of Horrors. But I’ve got to go with the pucksters. Both teams need coaches and general managers. But give the Hawks a point guard and they’ll be fine. Personnel-wise, the Thrashers need more than one fix.
2: Another reason why I would love to own a minor-league sports team one day: The Wheeling (West Va.) Nailers, an East Coast Hockey League team, are holding a “Shred Rich Rodriguez Night” Saturday. Any fan bringing an article or picture of Rodriguez to be shredded can buy a ticket at discount. It plays off reports of him shredding team related documents before he left West Virginia for Michigan. It follows that any fan wearing an Ohio State jersey also gets a discount.
1: One week to national letter of intent day. Any word yet on where Brian VanGorder is going?
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
