America's biggest yearly sporting blow-out unfolds again tomorrow when the Denver Broncos take on the storied Green Bay Packers in the 32nd Super Bowl. Or, as San Diegans like to put it, Super Bowl XXXII.
No other single-event sporting occasion in the world gets buried under such a mountain of hype and hoopla. San Diego has designated itself Party Town for the duration of the week, welcoming the frost-bitten denizens of Green Bay (or TitleTown, as Wisconsin locals call it in moments of unguarded hubris) and Denver (LoserVille, as we might call it if, as expected, they lose their fifth Super Bowl).
The media (curse their idle minds) like nothing better than to turn Super Bowls into morality tales. Whoever wins, their story will be a parable which, when read in the right light, reveals the secret of good living and the recipe for Mom's apple pie.
Denver's story revolves around John Elway, the quarterback who, at 37, is still a card-carrying Golden Boy. Elway is blond and good-looking and has a set of teeth which could bring on snowblindness if you stare too long. He is a multi-millionaire, has a happy marry marriage and golden girl/boy kids and just sold some of his car dealerships for $120 million. Heartbreakingly, however, his life isn't complete without one of the gaudy, chunky rings which are presented to winners of the Super Bowl.
The last football story to come out of Colorado was when one of the Kennedy clan skied backwards and fatally into a tree while playing ski football with his family. Hence this week's darkest joke: Q: Will Denver lose? A: Hey, does Rose Kennedy own a black dress?
Green Bay's story is about wholesomeness and virtue and good community living. If the Little House on the Prairie put out a football team it would be the Green Bay Packers, communityowned and keenly supported by people who are not embarrassed to wear triangles of cheese on their heads.
Before the game reaches its morally-enriching climax, however, the 65,000-strong attendance in the Qualcomm Stadium (that's a communications company, by the way, not an Aztec tribe) must live through the purgatory which is the half-time show extravaganza. The Super Bowl half-time show is proof that, in the design of the gods, excess is its own punishment.
Anyway, this being gridiron football and this being San Diego, the half-time show this year celebrates 40 years of, ehm, Motown music. Just three decades to go before a wrinkly Michael Flatley is paraded topless and sweaty before the crowd at Super Bowl LXII. The event is attended by the usual, end-of-term frivolity. After a winter's slog of NFL games, the sport heads for the sun and the blowout which they like to call the Big Dance. The 3,000-strong media contingent partied at Seaworld on Wednesday and partied downtown on Thursday, and between filing copy and digging their way out from under a daily avalanche of press releases, the media party just about anywhere, getting into the swing of things with the cheeseheads and the big hats from Denver.
And tomorrow, well, somewhere between the pre-game brunch and the post-game blowout a football match will take place.
Green Bay are expected to win. John Elway is expected to persevere. Then the big top disappears for another year.
