Seattle’s Hasselbeck Quick With the Quips

Of the two quarterbacks in Super Bowl XL, Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger might be getting more attention, but Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck is far funnier with the media.

Hasselbeck, who clearly doesn’t take himself too seriously, showed off his all-pro wit and comedic timing during media day Tuesday, whereas many of the other Seahawks and Steelers played it straight.

When asked whether there’s something about the Seahawks that the public doesn’t know, he said: “There’s a lot that people don’t know. Like our names.”

On the accident Monday, when he and five teammates were riding to a media session in a van that struck a security barrier: “I’m fine. It was like getting hit by a really small corner.”

On the possibility that there could be a lot of Steeler fans at the game: “My plea would just be for all the people coming to the Super Bowl that are undecided on who they want to root for, root for us. We could use it.”

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The Steelers were so bland on media day that not even the usually quotable Joey Porter could enliven their one-hour session with reporters.

Not that he tried.

“The big story isn’t how I go out there and play football; the bigger story is what he’s going to say next,” the linebacker from Bakersfield said. “That’s the only reason why I have people waiting for me right now.

“They feel like they’re going to tug and tug and tug until he breaks. But it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to give you anything special but to answer these questions, one at a time, and I’m going to take my time doing it.”

Porter, who accused the NFL of favoring the Indianapolis Colts when a replay judgment went against the Steelers in a divisional playoff game, wouldn’t even bite when told that Seattle was planning a victory parade.

“You don’t want to come to the Super Bowl and think about losing,” he said. “I can’t be mad about that. I have my parade in my head, how I would plan it. Definitely, the mental thought that you have to take to the Super Bowl is that you can’t be thinking about anything else but winning, so I don’t fault them for that.”

And what’s his parade plan?

“I can’t tell you,” Porter said. “It’s a secret.”

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Steeler linebacker Larry Foote, a Detroit native, was at training camp two summers ago when he got the surprising news: He was a father.

“I got a phone call from one of my buddies [saying] that [somebody at] the neighborhood barbershop told them that a girl I used to see back in the day came and told him I was the father of her son,” Foote said.

His friend saw the boy and reported that “he looked just like me,” Foote said. “But my head was just spinning, I was anxious, I was curious, just like anybody would [be]. It was like some talk show or something. I couldn’t believe it. When I saw the boy, I knew there wasn’t a doubt, but I still had the blood test.”

Foote said his son, Trey-veion, 9, has been living with him ever since.

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Roethlisberger, who at 23 will be the second-youngest quarterback to start in the Super Bowl, spoke recently with the youngest, Dan Marino.

“He called me and said, ‘Listen, enjoy it and have fun because you never know if it’s going to come back,’ ” Roethlisberger said of Marino, who took the Miami Dolphins to the 1985 Super Bowl in his second season, lost to the San Francisco 49ers and never returned. “He said that he thought he was going to make it back and he never got to play in it again. He told me to enjoy it but to take it serious enough because you want to win it since it could be your only time getting there.”