I left off last time setting the table for an anticlimactic Super Bowl. With so much good karma in the weeks and days leading up to The Game, the gods wouldn't possibly bless me with a game to remember, I thought.
Patriots-Panthers? There is something about a team with turquoise (it is not Carolina blue) in its colors that screams "expansion era." Combine that with two strong defensive units, a quarterback that needed only 14 passes to win the NFC Championship game and Boston fans in general, and expectations for number 38 seemed destined to go unfulfilled. What I would have done for Eagles-Colts...
Plus, the roof was closed. And I didn't see any rain until an hour after the game ended. Good call on that planned flyby, CBS -- we didn't see it. But the same goes for "Survivor All Stars."
I had gone home as a surprise for my dad, who got two tickets from his brother as a 50th birthday present, meant for him and my mom. But the old lady saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for father and son to bond and pulled through BIG TIME. She told me to keep it a secret, booked me a flight home and emerged looking like Mother Theresa, Nostradamus and Santa Claus all rolled into one.
We were going as a Parsley unit -- just me, The Bob and two of my uncles. Nail-biter or blowout, I was satisfied fully upon entering the gate just knowing how far this city had come.
If you haven't been to a Super Bowl, there really are no words to describe it fully. Madness. Excess. "Unbridled enthusiasm." Security. These are half-hearted attempts to encapsulate what truly is The Greatest Show on Earth.
What other event on the planet would bring so many A-List celebrities and athletes to a city more recently known for 1) having more smog per square foot than L.A., 2) the dubious distinction of "Fattest City in America" (which, by deductive reasoning, would make us the fattest city in the world) and 3) the home of not one, but two George Bushes.
Eyewitness accounts from friends of Nelly entourages and P. Diddy motorcades and a new mass transit rail gave Houston a legitimate big-city feel for the first time, despite having been the fourth biggest city in the country for quite some time.
It goes without saying that the first quarter was not a shock. Scoreless, ugly and surely not worthy of more than a grand per seat. Can't-miss-Vinatieri missed -- twice. This was going to be a long game.
The second quarter started off how the first had ended -- sloppy and still scoreless. Deep into the period, the Panthers had 0 total yards! But a flurry of offense in the final 3:04 sent the game to the locker room at 14-10, and I got the feeling like we were in store for something big.
Only, it was Janet Jackson's boob, then British streaker Mark Roberts' bum.
For those of you who missed the world-famous streaker, I am sorry. Because it was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. A naked "referee" on the field performing Riverdance? Name one thing that is funnier.
The third quarter mimicked the first, but the game was close, and that was all I had asked for that afternoon. What ensued in the final quarter was the most memorable shootout in NFL history.
Rooting for the Panthers amidst a sea of Bruschi and Brady jerseys proved to be extremely unpopular. My loyalty to Carolina, however, was superceded by The Bob's gambling problem as we wavered on whether to root underdog or payday. The loss feels better when you take into account that we covered the cost of my trip from our winnings in the first, third and fourth quarters. After all, the loudest cheer we let out all game was when the clock hit 0:00 to end the third with the score exactly where we needed to win $350.
But when the intensity became too much, I abandoned monetary urges and went with my heart, which had been stolen by those Cardiac Cats. For as much grief as I gave my Charlottean roommate for a team that could just have easily gone 4-12 as 11-5, I was mesmerized by their refusal to die. People say Tom Brady has heart. Jake Delhomme is heart, and he nearly pulled off the upset of a lifetime. To start the game 1-for-9 and finish a couple of 2-point conversions away from side-arming his team to the Lombardi Trophy -- that is determination.
I never once cheered for Carolina during their impossible road to Houston because I saw every win as surely their last. A fluke, I would say, week in and week out. Nineteen points in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl against the best defense in the league proved me wrong, but I am grateful for it. It was the best game I've ever been to -- but being next to the person who planted inside of me my love of sports made it the best day of my life.
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