SUPER BOWL XXI : It’s a Really Great Show for the Fans, Who Make Game What They Desire

A couple of Giant linemen are doing a Hottentot dance on the 50-yard line . . . half the stadium is singing, “New York, New York.” I remember the line of Adlai Stevenson when he made his concession speech and quoted Lincoln, “It hurts too much to laugh, but I’m too old to cry.

Fans are an irrational breed. We can hypnotize ourselves into a religious frenzy, seeing miracles that really aren’t taking place, rationalizing our team beyond its human capabilities. But from today’s tears we will start to plant tomorrow’s dreams, and our heroes will again grow to 10 feet tall.

At the Newporter Inn, the Bronco headquarters, things began to get draggy by the end of the week. Two thousand media representatives were desperately trying to find an angle that hadn’t been covered. They even got into interviewing the grass at the Rose Bowl, measuring its length to the half-centimeter.

One of the major papers became so frantic to find something unique, it finally came up with the brilliant idea of stationing a woman reporter in the ladies’ room to pick up random quotes.

After going through the wastebaskets in The Times sports department, I ironed out the crumpled papers off Jim Murray’s desk. Zero.

Then I got the brainstorm to call an old Marine buddy at Camp Pendleton and got a recon squad to tail the teams as they were being stashed away in hidden hotels the night before the game. I alone would know.

The Giants were whisked to Hugh Hefner’s mansion, where a night of Bacchanalian revelry ensued. Because the mansion doesn’t stock Gatorade, a grape-slinging orgy lasted till dawn.

Meanwhile, the Broncos repaired to a Franciscan brothers’ retreat, where they were locked in bare monks’ cells and left to contemplate.

At daybreak, the Giants were poured into a moving van, staggered on hands and knees into the Rose Bowl dressing room, where they were quickly dried out and uniformed in their blue collars.

Parcells had swallowed his whistle and became difficult to understand so Lawrence Taylor led the team in prayer. “May our smiting be painless, may their ghastly wounds heal without too many scars. Let us be merciful.”

On the other side of the stadium, the Broncos remained painfully silent. Dan Reeves was unable to communicate and things got rather tense. At last John Elway stepped forward. “Aw shucks, come on fellows.” Galvanized, the team pulled itself together.

Reeves patted John’s shoulder. “Thanks, fellow,” he said. “Thanks for that.”

At which time, Tom Jackson jumped to his feet and cried, “Let’s get them!”

They tore out of the locker room in an inspired rage, but ripped open the wrong door and poured down into an abandoned laundry chute. I should have suspected that was a bad omen.

There is nothing on the planet to compare with this show. Three-hundred-million people in China were watching, 10 million (one out of ten) in Japan and 14 million in England. With thousands of journalists peeking from behind every flower pot, absolutely nothing is unscrutinized.

It is the ultimate American con, a Madison Avenue-contrived event to sell beer, cars and toilet paper. Despite or because of the tens of millions of words poured out, the game can rarely live up to expectations. The playing of the contest is almost always an anti-climax.

So why do we go for it every year? Why?

Because when little boys grow tall, they become men but much inside them continues to remain little boys. Little boys and grown men spend a lot of hours dreaming about fading back and throwing last-second touchdown passes and making impossible broken field runs . . . that is, until baseball season when they smoke in no-hitters against the Yankee lineup. As we carry our fantasies into manhood, the Elways and Mecklenburgs become our alter egos.

Even in a sports-mad country and a sports-mad world, the Bronco fans are a phenomenon and it is painful to see our heroes so badly brutalized.

There was no turning point in this game, really. There were a few “what ifs.” If Denver had scored on two opportunities in the first half we “might” have dug the Giants into a serious hole. What if Clarence Kay had been given a catch instead of a bounced ball.

Wouldn’t have made much difference. We got blown out of the stadium in the second half by one of the most awesome displays of offensive and defensive football ever seen. Phil Simms, who had something or the other to prove, proved it. He threw for 88%. Morris cut us to shreds. No one could have beaten the Giants today and that’s all she wrote.

So, do we give up on our club? After all, it’s only a game.

From time to time, I’m called upon to perform difficult public survive and several years back my arm was twisted into my going to El Salvador to be a judge in a Miss Universe contest. The hype was not unlike a minor Super Bowl. About the third or fourth day, I began to feel rather silly about the whole program and I talked it over with columnist Max Frankel and he said, in effect, “How better was it to hold a battle when nations send the flower of their womanhood to fight it out in a beauty contest.”

Maybe its the same way with the Super Bowl, sending our barons going to settle their differences in a stadium rather than a battlefield. The franchise is the ultimate toy, a semi-kingdom that rates more attention than the president, the governor and the mayor put together.

As well as dreaming of being a great player, I suppose most of us consider ourselves sports geniuses. I penned a few immortal thoughts before going into the stadium:

--The Giants will come out smoking and try to rip lips. They will be gunning for an early and vicious sack.

Actually, it was a terribly clean game. However, when with 3:34 left in the first quarter, they drew a double penalty for roughness, I smirked.

--The Broncos’ composure in the first 10 minutes will be a vital key.

In fact, we played Mr. Cool the entire first half--too cool. We blew two scoring opportunities. In the end, it would have made no difference. I doubt if any team, including last year’s Bears, could have played even ball with the Giants in the second half.

--If we are even at halftime, they’ll never catch up.

That statment can go alongside the headline, “Dewey Beats Truman.” I had seen teams get very tired in the third and fourth quarters chasing after us. The altitude plus the fact most teams are heavier than the Broncos plumb wears them out. The defense begins making mistakes and Elway commences to take them apart. Well, the Giants weren’t even breathing hard at the end of the game.

--The Broncos have usually found every which way to pull a game out and particularly so, now that the great Dog Bone Drive in Cleveland is part of our heritage.

--The Giants didn’t want to land in Newark in the dark.

We had our moments. Elway was doing what we had seen him do so often--scramble, throw across field on the run, whistle in those low zingers, call the QB draw and run wild out of the pocket.

For a time it seemed that we were going to make New York sportswriters eat their pads and pens. Even with our missed opportunities, we felt we had things under control at the end of the first half.

And then the bloody sky caved in. The Giants’ play was undeniably magnificent. To merely call Phil Simms awesome is vanilla ice cream. He shredded us and the defense was just murderous. They just blew us off the field and we were destroyed by a great team, certainly one of the greatest.

It’s crying time in the Rockies. One old Bronco fan is going back to writing novels, a little wiser. It goes down hard but springtime will come back to the mountains, the snows will melt and the dream will start all over again. Only this time, it will be our guys applying the stick to them.

I hope the parade in Denver is a memorable one. These guys deserve it. They were beaten by superior talent on a day of magic for the Giants . . . but they played their best and deserve our love.

They also did well by us by their classy behavior. I never saw one Bronco refuse to stop and give a kid an autograph or pose for a picture. They were class gentlemen and I’ll have them on my team anytime.