At Last! Secrets of a Successful Super Bowl

I wonder how people who don’t like football, or don’t know anything about it, which is most of us, take refuge from the pervasive blather about the Super Bowl.

It will be on us Sunday, in case it hasn’t been called to your attention.

It will take place in Miami, but at least 100 million people will be watching it on television. (It’s probably closer to 200 million.) That’s more people than vote.

It’s puzzling so many people can be attracted to a physical sport that most of them can’t play.

It is widely thought, I suppose, that the game is quite simple, and below the intelligence of the average viewer.

On the contrary, football is quite complicated, and few of its most rabid fans have the slightest idea what’s happening on the field. I am not writing as an expert, but simply as a person who knows enough about the game to disabuse the average spectator of some fallacies.

Most people know the basics. How to score by running, passing or kicking the ball. How many quarters there are in a game (four). How many players there are on each team (11).

That last point may seem elementary, but it was a high point in my wife’s introduction to the game. When I started dating her, she was a senior at Bakersfield High School and I was a sports writer on the Bakersfield Californian. I took her to most of the games and enjoyed kidding her about her ignorance.

One night when we were watching a Bakersfield College game, a girl sitting close to us jumped up and shouted, “Hey! They’re putting in 11 new players--a whole new team!”

My wife nudged me with her elbow. “You think I’m dumb. That girl doesn’t even know there are only nine men on a football team.”

I don’t claim to be an expert, but it is true that I have almost always picked the winner of the Super Bowl. I have done that by avoiding the experts. (You noticed they all picked Pittsburgh to defeat San Diego.)

In this age of statistics, there’s nothing your TV doesn’t tell you about the game at any given time--how many passes each quarterback has thrown, how many were completed, how many were intercepted; how many times each team has had the ball; how many yards each has accumulated. Unless the game is a complete runaway by the end of the second quarter, there’s no way that kind of information will tell you who’s going to win.

The way I pick winners is by vibrations. If the quarterback has good vibrations, his team will win. Stan Humphries has good vibrations. That’s how I knew the Chargers were going to beat the Steelers and the Dolphins.

Stay away from books analyzing the game. I bought John Madden’s book on football, hoping to be let in on some of the secrets. Madden said, “Forget the quarterbacks. Keep your eye on the tackles and the guards.”

Unfortunately, I let my wife read it before I took her to our first Super Bowl. She didn’t seem to be enjoying the game. I asked her what was the matter. She said, “I can’t tell who the tackles and the guards are.” Of course she couldn’t. Nobody can, once the play is called and they all crash into a mass of flesh on the line.

Best to keep your eye on the quarterback and the man he throws the ball to.

A word of advice might be helpful on the domestic aspects of Super Sunday. I’m afraid the game causes many divided households. I don’t think it is sexist for me to point out that not as many women as men like football. My wife really tries, but her heart isn’t in it.

When that situation occurs, both parties should be gracious. A man should not be short-tempered with his wife because she does housework while he’s watching the game. A woman should not resent her husband’s complete absorption in the game for a few hours, even if he takes a few beers.

There is one word of advice, though, I might offer to any homemaker who doesn’t like football.

Clean house if you must, but don’t turn on the vacuum cleaner when the game is on TV. And watch your language.

Several years ago we were gathered in the home of our neighbors, the Daltons, to watch a Super Bowl game. Just at the kickoff, Mrs. Dalton struck a theatrical pose in front of the TV screen and said, “Who’s playing, fellows?”

A woman ought to have some respect.

By the way, the Chargers will win.

*

Jack Smith’s column is published Mondays.