Fox Picks Patriotism For Big Game

It’s fitting that one of the teams playing in today’s Super Bowl is named the Patriots. Super Bowl XXXVI’s theme is “Heroes, Hope and Homeland,” and patriotism will be everywhere.

It will dominate Fox television’s pregame coverage, which will include appearances by former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, George Bush and Bill Clinton, plus Nancy Reagan.

It’s also fitting that the Patriots are often called the Pats, because at the end of an emotionally charged day, just before Fox goes off the air, there will be a special tribute to Pat Summerall.

After 50 years of being involved with the NFL as a player and broadcaster, Summerall, 71, is stepping down as Fox’s lead play-by-play announcer.

Summerall has said he doesn’t want any fuss made over him, but there’s going to be one, anyway.

Fox hasn’t said much about what it plans to do, but it has been learned it’s not simply going to be, “See ya later, Pat.”

Fox asked two of its top producers, Gary Lang and Fran Morison, to put together a piece. In it will be film of Summerall kicking a dramatic 49-yard field goal in the snow, giving the New York Giants a 13-10 victory over the Cleveland Browns in the last game of the regular season in 1958.

That win threw the Giants and Browns into a playoff for the Eastern Conference title. The Giants won the playoff game, 10-0, then went on to their meeting with the Baltimore Colts in the monumental 1958 championship game, sometimes called “the greatest game ever played.”

Summerall will be given a plaque commemorating that key field goal, incorporating part of the goal post.

After the Summerall tribute, there will be additional postgame coverage on Fox Sports Net with the Fox pregame crew.

As for the three-hour pregame show on Fox, which starts at noon, the overlying theme will be patriotism.

And because of Sept. 11, the show featuring James Brown, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Cris Collinsworth will be more subdued than usual.

“Naturally, we’ll be sensitive to the entire theme of the show,” Bradshaw said.

The patriotic emotions should reach a peak during the final half-hour, mainly because of the piece featuring the former presidents and Nancy Reagan.

Fox has kept it under wraps, but David Hill, Fox Sports chairman, offered a sneak preview to a reporter at Fox studios in Los Angeles last Sunday.

The moving piece was three months in the making.

The presidents and Mrs. Reagan read the words from Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait,” a stirring blend of words and music put together not long after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Boston Pops, performing live on the field, provide the music for the segment.

The piece also includes shots from such American landmarks as the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. The segment ends with recent and dramatic footage from Ground Zero and portraits of two New York City firefighters who were killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

This segment was produced by Ronit Larone, Gary Lang’s wife.

The idea for the segment sprang from a meeting Hill had with NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. Joe Browne, NFL senior vice president of communications, served as a liaison to set up the filming of the four presidents and Mrs. Reagan.

Larone remembers getting an e-mail from Hill in October saying, “Have I got a project for you.”

The first step was getting everybody to agree to do it, then scheduling filming sessions with each. Carter was first, in Atlanta. Then Ford at the Marriott resort in Palm Desert. Bush was taped in Florida when he was in Boca Raton for a Rotary Club speech.

Larone said Clinton was the hardest to schedule but was finally filmed in Los Angeles, at the Sheraton Universal hotel on Jan. 14, before giving a speech there that night.

Nancy Reagan was taped two days later at the Bel-Air Hotel, and she agreed to do it only after asking that the script be reworked.

“Her role was to fill in for her husband and she didn’t think her part fit that role,” Larone said. “She was right, and we had to do some rewriting.”

Larone, 34, is from Manhattan. She used to live a mile north of the World Trade Center, and she lost friends in the tragedy. “My first idea after getting this assignment was to end the piece with footage of Ground Zero filmed from a helicopter,” Larone said. “It took a lot of work to get clearance because of the two-mile no-fly zone, and it was the last thing we shot.”

It was worth the trouble. It provides a dramatic ending to an emotion-packed piece that will be a big part of what should be an emotional day.

The pregame show’s finale will have Paul McCartney’s “Freedom.”

“Super Bowl Sunday has become an American holiday, much like Thanksgiving,” said Hill, the 55-year-old Australian who has adapted well to the United States since coming here eight years ago to start Fox Sports and is now as Americanized as they come.

“It’s only fitting, in the light of the events that took place on Sept. 11, that patriotism be a major part of our coverage,” he said.