Update: After a back-and-forth contest which included the longest play in Super Bowl history and 23 combined points scored in the fourth quarter, the Pittsburgh Steelers came out with their record sixth championship victory, 27-23.
Millions of screaming fans pack inside a stadium and crowd around the TV for the most watched sports event in America. A faceoff between the two best teams of the year ? the Super Bowl XLIII.
Millions of Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals fans cheer, chant and yell for their heroes in hope of football immortality. But despite incurring the highest television ratings each year, not everyone is a Super Bowl fanatic. While football coach Bonner Cunnings watches and leads the campus team, his love for the sport does not extend to the NFL.
“This might sound weird, but I do not watch much, if any, NFL contests,” Cunnings said. “I just don’t have time to watch any games. I couldn’t tell you who is even in the Super Bowl!”
Although football fails to find its way into Cunnings’ schedule, Doug Daniel, ’10, considers the Super Bowl another American holdiay.
“Maybe the people who don’t watch the Super Bowl just don’t get it,” Daniel said. “Even the commercials are fun if you just watch them. I can see [the Super Bowl] not being someone’s favorite event, but not to watch it? I think that it’s a holiday.”
The commercials during the Big Game are like an event themselves. Often hillarious and ridiculous, some fans just watch for the ad breaks alone.
“I’m just watching the Super Bowl for the commercials,” Connor Gibes, ’11, said. “They’re the only things that entertain me. They’re so outrageous because they’re desperate and know they’ll get hits. I don’t like football so I enjoy them.”
Although many enjoy watching the Super Bowl just to hang with friends, or for the excitment of the kickoff, campus cheerleader Alyssa Boss, ’10, never watches the game.
“I think the Super Bowl’s overrated,” Boss said. “I don’t even like football so why would I watch it? I like watching football if I know the guys on the field and they’re my friends, but I don’t see the point in watching strangers play unless I’ve been following them all season and am a hardcore fan ? and I’m not.”
To celebrate, fans will gather in living rooms and restaurants for a big extravaganza.
“On Sunday, I’m going to a Super Bowl party,” Daniel said. “I’m hoping it will be a great one of epic proportions.”
The kick-off is at 3:30 p.m. at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
For more information, visit The Feather Staff’s Feb. 13, 2008 article, Underdog victory ignites hope.
