Sports outlook

It seems that no matter how stupid the National Football League gets, something comes along to save the day like a good game.

How can any organization in its right mind, with the whole world watching, hire MTV of all things to run the halftime show at the Super Bowl? That's not stupid. It's STUPID! No matter what CBS says, or what Justin Timberlake says, or Janet Jackson says, when Timberlake reached across and pulled the leather covering off her right breast, it was no accident. The only accident was that both breasts weren't exposed. This was planned. All you had to do was listen to the words of the insipid song. He said he was going to do it.

And if it wasn't planned, why was she wearing pasties in the first place? Just how naive do they think people are? And the commentators, who are hired, after all, to report, failed to tell us about the streaker who, from what I understand, got pretty well thumped by a player before security got him. But alas, they are not reporters or even commentators, they are simply network shills who drone on incessantly. I can't even estimate how many times during the course of the game I hit the mute button on my remote to put an end to that idiotic, senseless chatter. They talk all the time, but on 90 percent of the plays, they don't bother to tell you where the ball is. The screen flashes second-and-10 or whatever, but never shows where the ball is.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a prude and never have been. But at least I have a certain sense of taste and decency in that there is a time and a place for everything. And halftime of a football game with millions of little kids and additional millions of simply decent folks watching is not the time to flaunt that kind of trashy behavior.

It wasn't the breast flashing that bothered me the most. What I found to be especially repugnant was the seeming inability of the so-called entertainers to keep their hands off their crotches. Every two seconds or so, they'd reach down and grab their crotches as if they were afraid something might fall off if they didn't hold it down.

As far as I'm concerned, this Super Bowl business has gotten completely out of hand. I can think of few things as ridiculous as having an entire one hour special the night before showing commercials that made their debut in various Super Bowls.

Stop and think about it. I wonder who the Madison Ave. genius is who came up with the idea that, yes, he could make people actually watch commercials rather than get up or switch the channel while they are being aired.

And then to actually run a special and have people vote on the best of all time. You did, of course, have to vote for one of three the network had selected for you. Now, let's see what companies these were. Budweiser, Coca-Cola and McDonald's. Hmm. And what do we get? A flatulent horse. Ha, ha, ho, ho!

After hours of blather all day long, your mind is benumbed by game time. They go on and on and it's all meaningless. All I wanted to do was watch Super Bowl XXXVIII, just as I had watched XXXVII of them in the past. Finally, after they had even told us how badly the vendors are ripping the public off by charging exorbitant prices for nickel-and-dime trinkets…like $30 for a baseball cap and $30 for a tiny stuffed animal or $76 for a child's jersey, they give us the usual rendition of the National Anthem, which,as has become the custom, turns into the artist's personal interpretation of the song that should be sacred to the American public. Over the years, I have heard some awful renditions even though nothing has ever come close to the Jose Feliciano baseball debacle back in 1968, or whenever, that made many Americans physically ill.

What I can't understand is why all these high-powered entertainers can't sing the Star Spangled Banner anywhere near as good as I have heard it at Nevada High School basketball and Nevada Griffon baseball games. And I mean that. If you are one of the people of whom I speak, thank you for respecting the song and our country.

The plain and simple truth of this whole thing is that the NFL fears bad Super Bowls and there have been a few of those. Some real stinkers.

But this Super Bowl, after it got going, was a whale of a game. It was exciting to anyone who cares about the game. And how could you have a better finish? Here was Adam Vinateri, who had missed two field goals, lining up for a 41-yard, probable game winner with 0:09 left. What drama. That's what makes the Super Bowl great.

It's Joe Namath guaranteeing a win. It's a high-stepping Otis Taylor, scoring for the Chiefs. You can go on and on with great Super Bowl moments. And that's what it all boils down to. That great TV audience isn't tuned in to watch some gala halftime Janet Jackson show or the Willie Nelson pre-game surprise. The audience is tuned in to watch the biggest professional football game of the year. It's just a pity that something with so many great moments wound up being reduced to an MTV spectacle. Disgraceful.