AP News, February 1st, 2007
If it wasn't for the scantily clad models promoting liquor companies, men's magazines and the occasional Spanish-language TV network, you'd think an Amway convention was on tap this weekend instead of the most overhyped sporting event on the planet.
Whoever dubbed this the "most pious" Super Bowl ever was on to something.
Every time Colts coach Tony Dungy or his Bears counterpart, Lovie Smith, take the podium, every player is innately good, they're going to give their best come Sunday, and no matter who wins, they'll all be pals Monday morning and for the rest of their lives.
Things were getting so warm and fuzzy by midweek, in fact, that a news conference for Campbell's Chunky Soup _ "each lip-smacking variety is loaded" _ threatened to turn into a standing-room only affair.
So where is the patron saint of Super Bowl partying when we need him, the guy who put visions of a nonstop bacchanalia into those Roman numerals the NFL is so fond of using?
On his way, apparently.
Word that former Chicago Bears badboy Jim McMahon was bearing down on Miami for a handful of appearances created as much buzz as any real-time happenings so far.
People say be careful what you wish for, but anybody who's wishing for something _ anything _ to liven up events in advance of Sunday's game should have one eye cocked on the horizon.
We're not looking for legal wrangles mind you, though the Bears' Tank Johnson did a fair job of imitating a lawyer by dancing around questions about the half-dozen automatic weapons recently confiscated from his home.
Nor for moral tangles. So let's hope none of piety floating above the game this week bursts like a balloon, the way it did when Falcons safety Eugene Robinson was arrested at the 1999 Super Bowl for soliciting a prostitute just hours after receiving the Bart Starr Award for "high moral character."
And the last thing we need is something tragic, like the Super Bowl staged here in 1989, when riots erupted and Cincinnati running back Stanley Wilson didn't make the game after a cocaine binge the night before.
Instead, we could use some good, messy frat-boy fun, the kind we used to get when those vintage, 1980s Oakland Raiders swooped into town for the big game and kept bartenders on retainer.
Or what McMahon drummed up in 1986, when he led the crew from the "Super Bowl Shuffle" on a weeklong crawling tour of New Orleans. A few were spotted partying late every night on Bourbon Street, generating so many stories that if only half were true, Chicago's 46-10 destruction of the Patriots was even more impressive than it seemed.
And talk about tall tales: As if McMahon hadn't done enough to keep the rumor mills churning, a TV report incorrectly quoted him calling the town's women "prostitutes."
On the other hand, the story about McMahon mooning a television station's helicopter that hovered over the Bears' practice field turned out to be all too true. I got that on authority a few years ago from no less a source than William "The Refrigerator" Perry.
"Jim was having a problem with his hip and he had his pants down a little in the back because the trainers were working on him at that moment," Perry said.
And that, I asked, was all there was to the story?
"OK," Perry grinned a moment later, "maybe once Jim realized the 'copter wasn't going away, he pulled his pants the rest of the way down."
No word yet on McMahon's itinerary, nor whether it includes counseling sessions for the slugs on both teams on how to have a good time _ and still win. Then again, if there is any truth to the idea that teams are a reflection of their coaches, that would be one considerable waste of breath.
So it should come as no surprise that a puppet reporter has gone after the most revealing tidbit so far. The brown, furry, bug-eyed little interviewer at the end of Televisa Deportes reporter Edson Zuniga's arm asked Chicago Bears safety Danieal Manning whether players have sex the night before the game.
Getting right into the spirit of things, Manning replied, "I don't even want to talk about that."
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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org
