PLATFORM : Touchdown in L.A.

CARL REED, director of operations at the Challengers Boys and Girls Club, commented on what holding the Super Bowl in Los Angeles means to youngsters in South-Central. He told The Times:

I’m taking 13 kids to the Super Bowl. We got the tickets from Touchdown for Youth, which is part of the Super Bowl. Businesses helped raise the money. It’s a reward for kids who are consistently doing well in school and who participate regularly in the activities at the club, the kids who are not suspended, the ones you don’t have to talk to all the time. Those were the criteria that the businesses had set up.

Those who are going are excited because they’ve never been to one, and probably won’t go to another Super Bowl in their lifetime. The others are just excited about the Super Bowl because they have their (favorite) teams.

(Because the game is in Los Angeles), there was a sports mini-clinic at UCLA and they invited a lot of youth from South-Central. Did drills with them. The National Football League is really reaching out. I guess with the riots, people know there is a lot of unrest in the cities, people know they are going to have to give something.