It's More Than A Game

"Absolutely, "I say.

I went to press conferences. I went to a press conference announcing that Pat Summerall and Terry Bradshaw had joined John Madden as part of the Fox Network's new football broadcast team, everybody making a lot of money, everybody smiling broadly. It all seemed quite important. Ed Goren, who was hired by Fox to produce, its football telecasts, said he had "climbed Mount Everest, ridden in a hot-air balloon and raced sled dogs to Nome, but no challenge in my life will ever match the challenge beginning now."

A man in the crowd, supposedly a reporter, asked Summerall if he planned to "make a new commitment as far as children in the community are concerned." Summerall didn't seem to understand the question. No one else did either. Bradshaw finally said he thought the man was asking if Summerall was going to be "a role model."

"Yeah, I'm going to be a role model," Summerall said. "But I don't know what the role is."

I went to a press conference that featured Bart Starr, the former quarterback and coach of the Green Bay Packers, talking about recycling. (Recycling is good.) I went to a press conference to hear Howie Long, the Los Angeles Raiders' Pro Bowl defensive end, announce his retirement. (Howie wants to spend more time with his three boys and wants to leave the game without walking funny.) I went to a press conference at which Stevie Wonder, the musician, talked about working together to end poverty. (We can do it if we try.) I went to a press conference where Joe Namath talked about the New York Jets' Super Bowl win 25 years ago. (The Jets didn't like the Baltimore Colts and the Colts didn't like the Jets.)

I went to a press conference featuring the talent for this year's pregame and half-time extravaganzas. Natalie Cole and Kris Kross sat at the same table with Tanya Tucker, Clint Black and Travis Tritt. There was much mention of the 7,000-square-foot stage and the 1,650 volunteer performers and the 350 stagehands. It also was mentioned that Michael Jackson had been the performer at halftime a year ago.

"Is Michael Jackson a tough act to follow?" a reporter asked Black.

"Maybe not, these days," Black replied.

I spent some time with a 29-year-old ticket scalper who was working the streets. He said this was the toughest ticket he could remember, the price holding strong around an inflated $1,000. He told tales of scalping everywhere, of briefcases with $20,000 in cash brought through metal detectors, of payoffs made to "people you wouldn't believe." He said he would scalp tickets to anything anywhere. He was even scalping tickets to the NFL Experience, the fan-participation exhibit at the Georgia World Congress Center near the stadium. He was hoping to scalp the postgame NFL party by bribing a busboy to let people enter through the kitchen. He said he had scalped hairdresser conventions, tractor pulls and golf tournaments.

"I once scalped the NCAA lacrosse championships at Brown University in Rhode Island," he said. "That was my favorite. Syracuse against Johns Hopkins. The ticket was $15, but they let kiddies in for $6. We went to the window and said we were from the Cranston YMCA. We wanted two adult tickets and 90 kiddie tickets. We did that a lot--a lot of guys did. We stood at the back of the line and sold the kiddie tickets for $10 apiece. Crazy stuff."