Sunday, January 27, 2008
Sports, "Hunt's Grunts"

ME AND SUPER BOWLS DON’T MIX

So the Falcons have found their coach.

So the Falcons have found their coach. Mike Smith, I wish you luck and I hope you can get this franchise back to the Super Bowl. Because until the Birds again play for the Lombardi Trophy, I’m not attending pro football’s championship game again. Because personally, good things don’t happen when I do.

Last weekend, with my face inflamed by sunburn and my liver inflamed by rum, I was in Lupi’s, a Puerto Rican sports bar, watching the Giants’ victory over the Packers. Now, this joint is owned by none other former New York Yankee right-hander Ed Figueroa, who won 55 games for the Pinstripes during their three-year World Series run from 1976-78. Not only did Steady Eddie become the first Puerto Rican to win 20 games in the big leagues (20-9, 2.99 ERA in ’78), the dude’s a swell fella and was muy bueno to buy us several shots of Patron while telling great stories about Catfish Hunter, Billy Martin, Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, etc. It was priceless stuff, and it reminded me of another time during a championship football game environment when I imbibed with a standout foreign professional athlete. But unlike that occasion, I didn’t go to jail after swigging down the blue agave’s finest with Figueroa.

It was 18 years ago this week that my buds, Ella and Snuggy Doug, went to Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans. It was the first of two Super Bowls I’ve attended, and in both cases, the unhappy times soon followed after game’s end. In this first case, the three of us had just witnessed the 49ers absolutely embarrass the Broncos 55-10 in a truly terrible game. But afterwards down on Bourbon Street, we sang at Pat O’Brien’s, where we encountered former Falcons kicker Mick Luckhurst (1981-87), who still ranks second on the team’s all-time scoring list.

The Redbourn, England native was in the Big Easy covering the game for his home country’s Channel Four, and he took a liking to us college guys who truly loved the Falcons too much—and apparently, on that particular night, we loved drinking mass quantities of hurricanes too much, as well. Regardless, Luckhurst gave us his number and invited us to join his party the following day for a riverboat cruise filled with wine, women and song.

Only the next day, Ella and I were Central Lockup after the manager at nearby Johnny White’s mistakenly thought we were going to steal the Falcons helmet picture from the wall. Booked (I like to refer to it as railroaded) on charges of public trespassing, Ella and I spent much of the next day in an overcrowded jail, only to be transported across town to the Orleans Parish Prison, where we got to shower (I didn’t drop the soap!), sport brightly colored prison garb and lay down in our own bunk beds.

Later, in the large TV viewing room, we inmates took a vote on what we wanted to watch. So while the guards were in their plexiglassed office watching the Michael Jordan-led Bulls take on Dominique Wilkins and the Hawks, we criminals (and there were some very violent offenders among us) watched an episode of “21 Jump Street,” where in the opening scene, two police officers were gunned down in a botched liquor store robbery, which led to a very loud cheer from the inhabitants of the Orleans Parish Prison. As we ate our pimiento cheese sandwiches, Ella and I remarked how glad we were that at that moment, we had each other. A few hours later, Snuggy Doug, who had opted to go pass out in the car rather than venture to Johnny White’s, found us and we posted bail.

Flash forward nine years to Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami, Fla. South Beach to be exact, where I spent a fun-filled four days filled with sun, sauce and celebrities, including a chance meeting and conversation with Cameron Diaz, who was in town filming “Any Given Sunday.” I mean, the Falcons were in the Super Bowl and KISS was the pre-game entertainment. Talk about sweet. I was covering the game as the editor of a former local publication, Atlanta Sports Weekly, and truly the good times were shining like an ever-burning bright light into the night. But Eugene Robinson got horny, Chris Chandler imploded and the Dirty Birds got cooked by the Broncos. The next day was a very cold, wet and raw day in Atlanta. I limped into the office on a badly sprained ankle sporting a rather painful sunburn, whereupon my publisher told me that due to budget cuts, I was being laid off.

Still, those are not the epilogues to my Super Bowl experiences. In fact, in New Orleans the day we were sprung, I went to a great Todd Rundgren concert at Tipitina’s, where I danced and sang onstage right next to the man Liv Tyler once referred to as Dad. The following day, I interviewed with a Montgomery, Ala. newspaper, which led to my first post-college job. And all the charges got dropped for a very small attorney’s fee.

Better yet, a week into my unemployment here in Atlanta, not having much else to do, I pulled a lottery ticket off my bulletin board that had been tacked there for five-plus months. I called a number and discovered that I was a mere 29 days from letting my winning Fantasy 5 ticket expire. It was worth $64K and I took home 43 grand, which certainly eased the pain of losing my job.

Still, though, I’m not heading back to the Super Bowl until the Falcons go back again. And at this stage, that could be a long time. So in the meantime, this Super Bowl Sunday, I think I’ll join Beau, Dawn and the gang over at Smith’s Olde Bar, which has been hosting a hilarious adult trivia night every Sunday. Come to think of it, adult trivia could lead to as much trouble as a trip to Super Bowl. Oh, well.

Happy times … and still I must ask: Why, Eugene? Why?