Super Bowl AT LARGE : Hope and Stewart Star in Lineup at NFL Alumni Presentations

Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart were the headliners for the NFL Alumni Assn.’s annual black-tie awards presentation Saturday night, going live from the Civic Theatre on USA Network cable television to toast such celebrities as San Francisco 49er quarterback Joe Montana and nine Apollo astronauts involved in lunar missions.

Hope said he was surprised at how staid San Diego had become such a party town.

“If there was a mayor’s election tomorrow, Spuds McKenzie would win,” Hope said. “Normally, San Diego is a quiet city. Now, it needs a straitjacket and a cold shower.”

Hope said he got a ticket and the cop “ran three times around my car and spiked the ticket to the ground.”

Hope and Stewart will be playing to a decidedly different audience today, however--1,500 grade school children from throughout San Diego County, invited to attend a Super Bowl party, kid style.

At Golden Hall, the youngsters will be treated to San Diego Zoo shows, a marching band, cheerleaders, mimes, magicians, clowns and a whole lot of food and souvenirs.

It’s all part of the NFL Alumni Assn.’s Hope for a Drug Free America, which is lining up high school students around the country to be known as Ambassadors of Hope and serve as positive role models for impressionable grade school children. Bob Hope is leading the campaign.

It’s one thing for Hope and Stewart to play to an audience paying $1,000 a pop. But 1,500 school kids the following day?

“This might be the best Super Bowl party in town. It’s a sleeper,” said Jim Esterbrooks, spokesman for the county Department of Education, which coordinated the selection of the lucky 1,500 kids.

Not straight-A students, this bunch.

“This is a group of kids who don’t normally get a lot of positive recognition and affirmation,” Esterbrooks said. “These are the kinds of youngsters we need to reach.”

For Brian De Tar, the biggest challenge of the Super Bowl is behind him. It’ll be up to 120 million home television viewers and 74,500 fans at the stadium to decide how well he did.

De Tar led a crew of eight people in tuning the 88 pianos that will be tingled and pounded during today’s halftime show.

With computerized tuning gizmos in hand, two people--assigned different strings--worked on each piano, first recording the frequencies of each key and then, sort of by consensus, determining how each should be adjusted to best blend.

They last had their hands on the pianos Saturday night--adjusting their tuning into the evening to account for changes in temperature and humidity.

They hope the pianos will all come out sounding alike this afternoon, and the logic goes that if they’re all a little off, maybe no one will notice.

De Tar tunes pianos for San Diego State University, the San Diego Symphony, the San Diego Chamber Orchestra and others.

But this is the greatest challenge yet, right? No.

“Eighty-eight pianos boils down to 11 pianos per piano technician. At San Diego State, I’ve got to tune 16 or 17 pianos before a semester begins. So this is a piece of cake.”

Everyone attending today’s game will leave with a souvenir seat cushion provided by GTE, the telecommunications consultant to the NFL.

If those cushions were stacked one atop the other, they would top 12,100 feet, or 22 times the height of the Washington Monument.

To think that someone sat down to figure that out as an angle to get some publicity. And to think it worked.

In our media file, these items:

In Friday’s USA Today, our city’s Dan Fouts offered his own travelogue--complete with pictures of him seaside and harborside--of San Diego--where to eat, where to play, what to see.

“If you’re looking for where the jocks hang out, try (Tia Juana) Tilly’s--or any bar in Mission Valley,” he advised.

For Mexican food, he suggested Hernandez’s Hideaway in Escondido--which may be the first time Escondido has ever been mentioned in USA Today.

Denver Post columnist Woody Paige on Friday, beneath the headline, “San Diego: The edge of yawn,” wrote:

“Some cities put fluoride in the drinking water. It is suspected that San Diego has Valium in its water supply.”