 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Big Easy does it New Orleans' ninth time as host provides biggest party yetPosted: Wednesday January 30, 2002 8:54 PMNEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Football's biggest bash is back in America's premier party town. New Orleans knows how to throw shindigs such as the Super Bowl, something it has done more often than any other city. Sunday's game between the New England Patriots and St. Louis Rams marks the ninth time the Super Bowl has been in The Big Easy. And just about every one of them have been memorable -- sometimes on the field, sometimes off. That's because almost everybody arrives ready to embrace the city's easy living slogan -- "laissez les bon temps roullez." Super Bowl visitors will "let the good times roll" as they settle in for a week of relaxation, maybe some jambalaya and jazz in the French Quarter, topped off by a hurricane or two at Pat O'Brien's. By the time kickoff rolls around, everybody's had a good time. And that's what New Orleans is all about. This year's game has interrupted five days of Mardi Gras parades through downtown. Don't worry. It's only a temporary condition in the town that care forgot. Stuff always seems to happen there. For New England, Denver and Minnesota, it's usually bad stuff. The Patriots, Broncos and Vikings are a combined 0-6 in New Orleans Super Bowls. And it's a decisive 0-6, each of the losses by double digits. It's been particularly bad for the Patriots, who've played in two Super Bowls, both in New Orleans, and haven't had much fun there yet. The last time they visited in 1997, the week was dominated with whispers about head coach Bill Parcells, rumored to be leaving the team. All week long, Parcells denied the talk. But he didn't fly home with the team after Green Bay battered the Patriots 35-21 and eight days later, he was gone, introduced as the new boss of the New York Jets. Amazing how that developed so quickly. Two of the biggest Super Bowl blowouts came in New Orleans. In 1990, San Francisco put an exclamation point on its dynasty with a 55-10 annihilation of Denver as Joe Montana threw five touchdown passes. Four years earlier, Chicago took apart New England 46-10 in a game so lopsided that even William "Refrigerator" Perry, fortified by a week of grazing on oysters and clams in the French Quarter, scored a touchdown for the Bears. That year, quarterback Jim McMahon arrived in New Orleans nursing a sore hip, an injury serious enough for the Bears to import a Japanese acupuncturist to treat it. The needles worked, allowing McMahon enough mobility to bend over during practice and moon a low-flying helicopter The NFL was not amused, but it was becoming accustomed to the boisterous behavior in Partytown USA. The very first Super Bowl played there in 1970 was accompanied by whispers that Kansas City quarterback Len Dawson had ties to gamblers in Detroit. Unlike the Parcells rumors, this one had no basis in fact and Dawson responded with an MVP performance in a 23-7 wipeout of Minnesota. This Super Bowl will have a patriotic flair about it with game balls carrying a silver, blue, and red outline of the United States. It will have to go some, though, to match the emotion of the 1981 game, when the NFL tied a yellow ribbon around the Superdome the morning of the game to mark the release of American hostages in Iran after 444 days in captivity. The Super Bowl is one quote after another, a week of interviews that only rarely produces much insight. The late Dick Schaap, then editor of Sport Magazine, decided everyone was taking the Super Bowl entirely too seriously that year, especially in light of the hostage crisis. Schaap dispatched two players, Fred Dryer and Lance Rentzel, to a pregame news conference dressed as 1920s reporters and had them pop cliche questions at the coaches. It was a bit of levity that didn't exactly leave the league laughing. That also was the year the late John Matuszak got in some hot water with the Oakland Raiders for breaking curfew. Tooz was the Raiders' self-appointed sergeant-at-arms, determined that the team's younger players would not be lured away from the business at hand by the temptations of the city. He announced that he would not stand for any monkey business. With that, the Tooz went on patrol. In the French Quarter. At 3 a.m. Dancing. It was Wednesday, Matuszak explained. "Wednesday is The Tooz's night out," he said. "I am the enforcer. That's why I was out on the streets -- to make sure no one else was."
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
