Super Bowl 50 is coming up
on February 7th. Okay, now I am really
feeling old since I can vividly recall Super Bowl III, three, as in 1-2-3.
Geez, that was 47 years ago. How is it that I can easily remember something
that happened 47 years ago??? Un-frickin-believable!
In fact Super Bowl III was
when I first seriously got into pro football. As a quick side note - I don't
know why they decided to use Roman numerals to identify the games. It was fine
for the first 10 or 20 since most of us learned the basics of V, X, I, L
& M in school. But when they got up into the 30s & 40s it became just a
bit cumbersome. I mean, really, Super Bowl XXXVIII or Super Bowl XLVII. Who
can glance at that & know it was 38 or 47?
But I digress, back to Super
Bowl III in January of 1969 held in Miami ,
Florida
I was only 18 years old
& didn't know much about professional football - major league baseball had
been my sport of choice. But when Broadway Joe Namath brashly declared a few
days before the game that he "guaranteed a win" by the Jets, I was
caught up in the hype. Football fans were aghast that the underdog Jets quarterback
would be so bold. I loved it & jumped on the bandwagon.
My father & his friend,
Harold, were huge sports fans. A few years prior I had attended my first pro
football game with them on a rainy day at Frank Youell Field on the campus of Laney College
They couldn't believe Namath
guaranteed a win. During a good natured "argument" when they both
told me I was crazy for thinking there was any way the Jets would win, I
proposed a bet with both of them! It was either $3 or $5 each - I can't
remember. Of course, they agreed, saying it wasn't fair to take a girl's money
- but if I insisted. I took the Jets with no points & they both had the
Colts.
Well, needless to say when
the Jets won 16-7, I collected my winnings & never let either one of them
forget that they both lost to an 18 year old girl who knew nothing about
football but listened to Joe Namath! Harold has long since passed away but I
reminded him & my dad of that bet for decades. And I have been hooked on
football ever since.
Our family has hosted a
small Super Bowl get together for many, many years now. We often did something
fun & unique to the particular game as we all made our rooting choices. For
instance when the Washington Redskins were in it & their offensive line was
nicknamed "The Hogs", all their fans would wear plastic pig noses. I
made some out of pink construction paper that we tied around our faces. Or when
the Denver Broncos were dubbed the Orange
Crush & everyone brought bottles of Orange Crush soda, I decorated a six
pack of beer with Orange Crush labels to share with my dad. Hey, it kept me out
of trouble.
The run that our San
Francisco Forty-Niners had during the 1980s of 5 Super Bowl wins was legendary
for all of us die-hard fans who suffered through the bad years. Those parties
were the best - cheering on our OWN team to victory after victory! I swore I
would never complain about them again - & I haven't.
These past two years there
have been no Super Bowl parties for good reason. Lou finally "won"
the right to purchase tickets to Super Bowl XLVIII (that's 48 in Roman
numerals) in New Jersey Caribbean Sea where the New England Patriots beat those
same Seattle Seahawks.
But this year I'm once again
making my traditional Seven-Layer Bean Dip (that really only has 6 layers - go
figure) & we will be cheering on either Peyton Manning & the Broncos or
Cam Newton & the Panthers at my dad's house in Roseville.
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