Columnist Dean Juipe: Super Bowls are defined by excesses

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

It was the most colossal sporting event in the history of the world.

In terms of dollars generated and column inches written in advance of the game, nothing that ever preceded it rivals Super Bowl 33. It was both a windfall and a windbag.

And there's only one game in the foreseeable future that has a chance to match or possibly exceed it in terms of revenues and exposure: Super Bowl 34.

Hopefully Game No. 34 will offer a more enduring legacy than Game No. 33, which caught the Atlanta Falcons in an occasional tailspin en route to a 34-19 loss to the Denver Broncos Sunday in Miami. This is a game that will be best remembered as John Elway's triumphant swan song.

But the Super Bowls blur over time. Roman numerals notwithstanding, only the most dedicated fans or those with the sharpest memories have pinpoint recall when it comes to a particular game's particulars.

That's because the annual game is habitually overwhelmed by excesses. In fact, this is an event that is personified by unlimited excesses.

It starts once the teams are determined and gets more tedious and redundant with each passing day. Surely there is a limit to how many stories can be manufactured about such idiosyncrasies as offensive linemen sharing tattoos or the special-team sensation who is a strict vegetarian, but you wouldn't know it from the nation's newspapers.

There's a belief -- backed by actual ad dollars -- that there is no such thing as a saturation point. As a result, even the casual fan is overwhelmed by minutiae.

For instance: the quality and color of the field itself. In Miami, an imperfect playing surface was salvaged in the final days not only by gallons of green paint but by tons of liquid manure.

Some would say that's more than you need or want to know. But with the Super Bowl imminent, groundskeeper George Toma -- and the man who grew the sod, pro golfer Greg Norman -- were seen as sexy stories by editors with reporters who might otherwise be idling by the bay.

No item is too small that it can't be stretched into a full feature. Re: air travel and its resulting congestion above the stadium. If you didn't know the area around the stadium had its own air-traffic controller for the day, then you missed the story on page 53 in the special Super Bowl section that had everything from Shannon Sharpe's favorite quotes to Dan Reeves' words to live by.

Otherwise normal Americans become infatuated with football when the Big Game approaches. They want speculative pieces; they want lists; they don't mind blatant posturing; and they'll load up on tidbits right on down to a player's secret indulgences.

If it's X-rated, if it's Atlanta safety Eugene Robinson being arrested for soliciting an undercover prostitute the night before the game, bring it on. His mistake, a tasty morsel of a news angle on the eve of the game, fit in perfectly in a time and place laden with debauchery.

The Super Bowl and its many tangents reflects the era in which we live as well as any single event in the country. If the entire volume of material written, spoken or seen in the two weeks surrounding it could be put in a time capsule it would stand forever as perfectly representative of our penchant for excess.

It's a game and a happening that defies moderation.

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