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Stakeout Move over Estevez, Dreyfus, it's the Fiend and his Friend
Posted: Thursday January 27, 2000 12:41 PM
ATLANTA (CNNSI.com) -- After spending the first several days of Super Bowl week hibernating from the bitterly cold weather here in Atlanta, I finally decided to get out and enjoy some of the flavor of the big game coming to my hometown. So as so many dynamic duos in the past have done -- Batman & Robin, Starsky & Hutch, Sanford & Son, Siegfried & Roy, Steve and Edie... I'll stop now -- have done in the past, I hit the road with my buddy Friend of Fiend to try to catch a glimpse of the Tennessee Titans' practice at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Georgia Tech's campus. We hopped in the Fiendmobile this afternoon and headed over to the beautiful campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology to try to check out the practice and perhaps get some autographs. A sunny, but bitterly cold day awaited us outside, so we bundled up as if we were going on an Everest expedition and drove the mile or so north on Techwood Drive from CNN Center to Tech's campus. The car was left in an underground parking garage (more on this later) near the Tech Athletic Complex, and off we headed into the southern winter wonderland to track the Titans. We walked around Bobby Dodd Stadium to scope out the best vantage point from which to watch practice, and each time we stopped we were instantly accosted by security guards telling us that we couldn't stand there. Apparently Titans coach Jeff Fisher gives a bit too much credit to the telepathic powers of journalists walking around the outside of the stadium, because this was a paranoid bunch.
With the subfreezing temperatures getting the better of us, we retreated to the warmth of The Bill Moore Student Success Center on the West side of the stadium. Walking in the lobby we saw a large wall of windows that looked out over the stadium, giving us the perfect place from which to watch practice. Unforunately, NFL Security didn't share our sentiments, and they made people in the room stay at least 10 feet away from the window so that they couldn't see the field. The main guard stationed in the room had covered four previous Super Bowls, though you wouldn't know it by the way he frequently wandered away and left people free to peer into the stadium to have a look at the "top secret" Titans practice. "You can stay in this room, but you have to stay away from the windows," Mr. Event Staff-guy said. "They just want their practice to be private." OK, sweet. Now wander away again so that we can watch practice some more. My trusty assistant had the bright idea to go "exploring" and wandered down the hallway toward the luxury suites. Lucky for us, the door to Suite 10 was unlocked, and he crawled in cautiously on his hands and knees so that no one would notice. Friend watched practice for two or three minutes from the luxury box, then slipped back out unnoticed, and off we went to sit in the lounge for a bit.
While sitting in the common area, the father of former Georgia Tech All-America center and Titans rookie offensive lineman Craig Page came walking in, and was recognized by several of the academic support staff members in the building. Warren Page chatted with several of them for a bit, before walking up to the window to watch practice from the comfort of the heated indoor perch above the stadium. Papa Page spoke proudly of how his son has made the Super Bowl in his first season, saying, "He was on the practice squad until three games ago, and now here he is. ... Isn't that unreal?" Once practice was about to end, we wandered back down to the North end of the stadium where four buses were lined up for the players. Friend of Fiend and I chatted up some Tech students who had been there on our first tour of the stadium, and we waited with them for the Titans to board their buses after practice. The two sophomore architecture students were both thrilled to have the Titans practicing on their campus, and both think that Tennessee has a good shot at downing the favored Rams. And we waited ... and waited ... and waited some more ... until finally at just after 6 p.m. the players began emerging from a side entrance of the J.C. Shaw Sports Complex to get on the buses and head back to their hotel in Buckhead. At this point, the security detail nearly outnumbered the assembled fans (as if the 12 or so 150-pound weakling engineering students waiting on the sidewalk were going to bum rush the Titans or something), but now they were serious about not letting people get near the bus. Georgia Tech head football coach George O'Leary came out of his office around 6:30 p.m. and was made to cross the street like any other person on the sidewalk rather than walk past the buses where players were boarding. So much for preferential treament on your own campus. By this time our toes were beginning to freeze, my cheeks had long since gone numb, and I was struggling mightily to jot down notes while wearing fleece winter gloves. Just as we were about to give up and retreat to the comfort of our lovely newsroom only a mile away, the Titans' star players started coming out of the building.
Jevon Kearse was first, slipping in behind another player and disappearing quickly onto the second bus in line, foiling our chance to snap a quick photo of him with our digital camera. Minutes later Steve McNair appeared from the building, and boarded the first bus in line to avoid the unseasonal chill, pausing only long enough to tell me that his toe felt "alright," whatever that means in medical parlance. Less than five minutes after McNair, Eddie George walked onto the bus, then quickly got back off again to run inside the adjacent McDonald's to grab a quick snack. Several other players joined him to get their fill of grease, and then my fearless photo-taking friend snapped a wonderfully candid photo of George carrying bags of McDonald's with him back to the bus. Autographs proved to be impossible with the large "crowd" being kept at least five feet back from the bus, but the pictures of the Super Titans were enough for us. Satisfied with getting up close and personal with George and his fast food of choice, Friend and I headed back to the Fiendmobile. When we approached the ramp leading down to the parking garage, the main gate was down, and there was a definite sense of deja vu from Fiend's Thanksgiving trip. You may recall that while I was in Oakland covering the Chiefs-Raiders game over Thanksgiving weekend, I left my rental car's lights on, not discovering my error until the stadium parking lot was already empty, and there was no one left to give me a jump. Wednesday the gate to the parking ramp was down, locked, and the building into which we had first gone that afternoon was locked up and competely dark. "Can't I do anything without having some sordid tale to tell involving my automobile while covering football?" I thought. ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! Friend and I both called the campus police and the parking lot management company, but we didn't end up needing to hang out long enough for them to show up. Luckily for us, it wasn't long until someone pulled out of the parking lot, allowing Friend and I to dash down the ramp and dive dramatically under the gate moments before it closed, just like in most action-adventure movies. (OK, this really didn't happen, but it sure makes a dramatic finish to the story, doesn't it?) Tomorrow will find the Fiend next door from us here at CNN Center trying to make 12-year-olds cry by dominating them in the games at the NFL Experience at the Georgia World Congress Center.
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