|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Road Diary Motown, Madden and me up in the morning!
Posted: Thursday November 25, 1999 07:46 PM
Thursday, November 25, 1999, 7:33 p.m., Pontiac Silverdome I would venture to say that Turkey Day in Detroit was an unqualified success. Sure, I missed my flight to Minneapolis at 6:30 p.m. that was supposed to connect me through to Denver tonight, but I'll catch another one in the morning and be in Boulder by game time. I hope. Today was certainly one of the best days I have ever had -- what football fan wouldn't be psyched to have hit the motherlode by running into freakin' John Madden on Thanksgiving Day? He has been as much a part of my Thanksgiving memories as any of my family members for as far back as I can remember. Sorry Mom, but his turkey on TV always did look better than yours. In addition to seeing John Madden first thing in the morning, I got to hang out with Third Eye Blind backstage; I ran into Fox Sports' Daron Sutton (an old friend with whom I used to work with at Headline Sports); I rode in the elevator with Lesley Visser down to the press room; then I capped it all off by bumping into Tim Allen in the Lions' locker room after the game. The Fiend is hobnobbing with the elite today! Tomorrow will be a day to see old friends rather than pop cultural icons, as I will be returning to a place that is very near and dear to my heart. By this point you know of The Fiend's fondness for football played on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, but I don't think I've divulged my love for the Colorado Buffaloes quite yet. Though it may be hard to believe, The Fiend actually has a college degree, though it is a B.S. from Colorado, so that doesn't really count for much, I guess. Bachelor of Science in Journalism, not a bulls*&t degree, if that's what you were thinking. So I will be up bright and early tomorrow morning to hit the road for Denver. My flight leaves at 7:00 a.m., and after connecting in Minneapolis I should arrive in Denver at 10:23 a.m. That should give me just enough time to get up to Boulder by kickoff at 12:30 p.m. Tomorrow will be my first trip back to Boulder since I graduated in May, 1996, and I'm expecting to get a bit emotional as I drive into town. I'll let you know if The Fiend gets soft on you in his first return to his alma mater in three-and-a-half years. Hope your Turkey Day treated you well. Now you have to ward off the desire to take a post-dinner nap and rally for the rest of the weekend, because there are still four more games to go in our journey! I'll talk to you from Boulder tomorrow afternoon.
Wednesday, November 25, 1999, Pontiac Silverdome The Fiend has arrived! After a surprisingly uneventful night of travelling, I finally made it to the Motor City shortly after midnight. I landed in Detroit at about 12:05 a.m. last night, and after sitting on the ground for 20 minutes to wait for a gate to open up. I finally departed the plane into the terminal about 12:25 a.m. I picked up my lovely Ford Contour rental car from the Hertz location at Detroit Metro Airport and set forth for the Motel 6 in Auburn Hills. Fortunately for me as a first-time visitor to Detroit , the rental car was equipped with a in-car navigation system. Very cool invention. I just punched in my destination and it told me where to turn, how far ahead the next turn was, miles left until I reached my destination and estimated time of arrival.
I woke up at 8:30 a.m. this morning and quickly showered and headed out the door to go pick up my media credential at the Hilton Suites on Featherstone Road. The cold morning air was quite a shock to me, even though I grew up in Wisconsin. Has The Fiend been made soft by living in Georgia for three-and-a-half years? As I pulled up to the Hilton Suites in Pontiac, the first thing I saw in the parking lot was the Madden Cruiser out front. Fans were lined up gawking at the bus, taking pictures and such, when John Madden himself stepped off the bus. Apparently Outback Steakhouse was running a contest where the winner got to ride over to the Thanksgiving Day game with John Madden on the Madden Cruiser, so about 10 of the fans boarded the bus and took off for the stadium in style. That's enough to make The Fiend jealous. I exchanged pleasantries with Mr. Madden, but the bus was running late to the stadium so they had to head out before I could chat with him for any length of time. I left the hotel at about 9:45 a.m. and drove the half-mile or so from the Hilton to the Silverdome and parked my car in the media lot near the television trucks. I am now sitting in my seat in the press box (Row 3, Seat 12) watching the teams go through light warmup exercises. The stands are starting to fill up, and I can't wait to hear 80,311 screaming fans in what is supposed to be one of the loudest football stadiums in the country. That's it for now. I'm going to head back to the press box to grab some turkey and then go cruise the concourses to soak up some atmosphere. Wednesday, November 24, 1999 2:32 p.m. Let CNNSI.com's First Annual Thanksgiving Football Feast begin! My wife is driving me to the airport this evening, and she swears that she'll still be here when I get back. I thought I saw a weekend bag, and a full tank of gas in the car, but maybe that's just me being paranoid. Anyway, I have bigger things on my mind, like the Motor City. I am leaving Atlanta on an American Airlines flight at 7:55 p.m. EST this evening, and after changing planes in Chicago, I will get into Detroit at 12:13 a.m. The Fiend has reserved palatial accommodations at the Motel 6 in Auburn Hills about a mile or so from the stadium, just so I can be as close to the Silverdome as possible. Then Thursday morning I will only have a short jaunt over to the stadium to bond with my people before the big event. The Fiend has never been to Motown, so I am bringing along my Billy Sims jersey and plenty of good assembly line stories to swap with the hard-working people of Detroit. I truly can't wait for tomorrow's game. Attending a game on Turkey Day is something I have always wanted to do -- and to have that dream about to come true in less than 24 hours is an amazing feeling. The tradition between the Bears and the Lions is incredible, and this will be the 15th time the two teams have met on Thanksgiving Day, with the Bears holding an 8-6 advantage. As a Packers fan, a win by the Bears would help out the mighty Pack in the division race a bit, and with how banged-up Detroit's secondary is, an upset by the Bears is not out of the question. Let me just go through my checklist before I leave to make sure that I have everything I need. I crammed my backpack full of four pairs of underwear (that's enough for six days, isn't it?), a couple pairs of socks, two pairs of jeans, my Brett Favre three-time MVP t-shirt and my omnipresent Cheesehead for Monday night. My reading material consists of "When Pride Still Mattered" -- the new biography about Vince Lombardi -- by David Maraniss, "Green Bay Replay" by Dick Schaap, and "Packer Legends In Facts" by Eric Goska. So I should have plenty to read on the trip, and that's not even counting my latest Packer Report magazine. That's it from Atlanta for now -- I'm off to get my fill of airports, motels, rental cars, junk food and football for the weekend. I will write more from Detroit tomorrow morning before the big game. My wife was kidding about moving, wasn't she?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
