Tiger at the Super Bowl Gates

“The Trojan War will not take place.” The noble, sensible Trojan chieftain Hector says this repeatedly throughout Jean Giraudoux’s sublime play Tiger at the Gates. With his wife, Andromache, pregnant, Hector is determined to preserve the peace between his country and Greece after the willful Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, has taken up with the Trojan Paris. Ultimately, though, Hector’s insistent plea (wishful thinking, really), spoken inside the gates of Troy, goes unheeded in an inexorable and fateful rush to battle.

As the snow fell and the temperature in the New York metropolitan area remained below freezing in late January, the day for the National Football League’s final skirmish approached. As surely everyone from Pershing Square to Persia knows by now, this Sunday will be the first time that the Super Bowl will be staged—and no sporting event is more staged than this game—outdoors (about 30 miles from New Jersey chieftain Chris Christie’s Sparta) in a cold-weather stadium.

And as I thought of the impending spectacle, and of all things bloated and self-important connected to the event, I was reminded of Hector’s futile words. Could they signify a contemporary football parallel? Where was the voice of reason during the original discussion over the site of this year’s Super Bowl? Was there no level-headed Hector in the NFL conference room when the debate took place? No one with the common sense to prevail over the lunatic consensus willing to risk leaving pro football’s championship to be determined by the vagaries of winter weather in the northeast?

Hector’s Greek counterpart Ulysses, dubious over the prospects of peaceful co-existence, is nevertheless persuaded by the steadfastness of Hector. Still, he offers a clear-eyed and damning conclusion about the inevitability of war. “One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophe from a terrace,” he tells Hector. For despite Hector’s brave insistence, because of a lie, the Greeks would eventually launch a thousand ships against Troy.

Could those words from Ulysses also help explain why and where the Super Bowl this weekend would take place? I picture NFL executives and their corporate business and media partners rolling in comfort and stylish charm in the sheltered, climate-controlled terrace of Met Life stadium’s luxury boxes, safely witnessing what could be a weather-affected catastrophe on the field.

And I wonder if the misguided decision to play the Super Bowl in a cold-weather stadium might have been different had the principals involved in the discussion been apprised that they would have to sit, Bowie Kuhn-style (sans overcoat and long underwear), among the non-privileged out in the uncomfortably bitter winter air. 

The Grammys and Sports

In honor of, or perhaps in spite of, the Grammy awards tonight, we dug into our interview files to recall the favorite music or musicians of these sports and media personalities:

Ernie Accorsi: “The Great Pretender,” by the Platters

Marv Albert: James Blunt, Damian Rice, Sarah McLachlan. “I passed through the do-wop stage from my disk jockey days.”

Sandy Alderson: Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love”

Billy Beane: “I’m kind of a closet alternative music guy, going back to the New York City punk scene. I consider Johnny Ramone a friend.”

Elton Brand: “I listen to hip-hop. Rock and roll songs—Prodigy—get me pumped up for the game.”

Jerry Colangelo: “I like anything that has sax, piano—that kind of jazz music, and I love anything Sinatra.”

Seth Davis: “Hard Rock Kid,” by the Radiators

Eddie DeBartolo: “Anything by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.”

Frank Deford: “I’m thinking of all the country-and-western songs I like. [And] I love that Traviata (hums ‘Libiamo’).”

Phil de Picciotto: Pachelbel’s Canon

Boomer Esiason: Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”

Ari Fleischer: Country music

Adonal Foyle: Reggae, soca, jazz and classical

Clyde Frazier: “I’m oldies but goodies. I Motown down: the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Isley Brothers. That’s what I listen to over and over.”

Peter Gammons: “Gimme Shelter,” by the Rolling Stones

Wyc Grousbeck: “I’m a Pearl Jam/Led Zeppelin/Aerosmith guy and I play drums in a rock band. We actually go play gigs, so I’m a rock drummer in my spare time.”

David Halberstam: “The Sinatra albums of the mid-to-late ’50s.”

Keith Hernandez: Rhythm & blues, rock, jazz

Peter Jacobsen: “Jethro Tull’s ‘Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day.’ It’s got some great lyrics in there. It says, ‘Sometimes you feel like everybody else is on the stage and you’re the only one sitting in the audience.’”

Peter Kenyon: Handel’s Zadok the Priest

Armen Keteyian: “Sky Blue and Black,” by Jackson Browne; Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On” Len Komoroski: “Jungleland,” by Bruce Springsteen; “The Last Resort,” by the Eagles

Al Leiter: Bruce Springsteen’s music

Ronnie Lott: “The music of Prince.”

Jeffrey Lurie: “For What It’s Worth,” by Buffalo Springfield. “My favorite group is The Doors.”

Rich McKay: “I’m a basic California kid, so I’m an Eagles’ guy.”

Sean McManus: “Maggie May,” by Rod Stewart, and “Johnny B. Goode,” by Chuck Berry. “My daughter’s name is Maggie, and those are my kids’ favorite two songs.”

Jim Nantz: “I’m pretty eclectic. I go from Bruce Springsteen to Yanni and everything in between.”

Rick Reilly: “Overall, I guess I’d say Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. 

Robert Sarver: “Let’s Get It Started”

Larry Scott: “Desert Rose,” by Sting

Phil Simms: “I like everything from rock-and-roll to classical to country. I even listen to a little rap. I’ve got kids, and I hear it and I say, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good.’”

Emmitt Smith: Kirk Franklin and R&B

Gary Smith: “Thunder Road,” by Bruce Springsteen, is right up there.

Gene Smith: Stevie Wonder’s “That Girl”

Annika Sorenstam: “I like modern music—U2, Madonna.”

Erik Spoelstra: “U2. I’m not a groupie, but I’ve seen them in concert six or seven times.”

Roger Staubach: “I love country-and-western music. I work out every morning to CMT. I’m a Toby Keith fan, Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Gretchen Wilson. Mark Wills wrote a song, ‘19 Something,’ in which he remembered being Roger Staubach in the back yard running around. That became my favorite song.”

John Swofford: “‘Good Morning, Starshine’ (from the musical Hair), by my brother, Oliver.”

Randy Vataha: “Just about anything written by the Beatles."

Alan Webb: “Ants Marching,” by the Dave Matthews Band

Jerry West: “Growing up in West Virginia, everybody used to listen to country music. I like classical music. Now my tastes run to soft rock and some jazz. I like some of the old, traditional people. I like Elton John. I think he’s a tremendous entertainer. I listen to a lot of music from different areas.”

Pat Williams: “The William Tell overture. Never ceases to raise the hair on my head.”

Reggie Williams:  “I love the Motown sound.”

Mary Wittenberg: U2, Coldplay, The Jersey Boys

Alexander Wolff: “‘Maiden Voyage,’ by Herbie Hancock; Gustav Mahler’s Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony; and ‘Domino,’  by Van Morrison, never disappoint.”

Kristi Yamaguchi: Daughtry, Janet Jackson, Rihanna, Nickelback, Ballas Hough Band

  

“Saturday Night Fever” Remembered

The film “Saturday Night Fever” opened in New York City on this date (December 14) in 1977. As assistant arts editor, I had the first read on the original manuscript, “Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night,” written by British journalist Nik Cohn and illustrated by James McMullan, that appeared in New York magazine on June 7, 1976.

The magazine’s staff attended the film’s premiere and then we all headed off to Tavern on the Green for the first-night party and dinner. What fun!

We were not required to wear the platform shoes and the garish polyester outfits favored by the Bee Gees, who composed the score and performed the songs, and the disco dancers of the day. 

Mozart

The 35-year-old Mozart died on this date in 1791. “The greatest tragedy in the history of music,” said the distinguished musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon. In the months leading up to his death, Mozart composed a prodigious catalog of swan songs: The Magic Flute, his final piano concerto and string quintet, the Clarinet Concerto, Ave Verum Corpus, and the unfinished Requiem. Did any other artist ever finish on a more exalted note!

JFK and Roger Staubach on Life

John F. Kennedy, the 35^th President of the United States, was assassinated on this day (November 22) in 1963 in Dallas. People around the world remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the tragic news. One such person was Roger Staubach, at the time the junior quarterback of the U.S. Naval Academy.

“I heard people screaming in the hall that the president’s been shot,” Staubach told Joe Trahan of WFAA in Dallas/Fort Worth in an interview that ran on wfaa.com back in 2013. “And as I’m walking to class down Stribling Walk, people were yelling back and forth that [Kennedy’s] been shot and it doesn’t look good.

“Everybody was sick. You didn’t care about football. You didn’t care about the Heisman. You didn’t care about anything. Just wondering what the heck is going on here.”

Staubach had met the president a year earlier, at Navy’s preseason football camp, and then spoke to him when JFK visited the Navy team locker room following its victory over Army near the end of that season.

“He became really close to our team, relatively speaking, on a good basis,” Staubach told Trahan. “It was pretty neat having him there. Just [the president] being at the game was great.”

Life Replaces Staubach With JFK

Staubach was inextricably linked to JFK in another, perhaps less-well-known, way. As the nation’s best college football player (he would be voted the winner of the Heisman Trophy), Staubach was the cover subject for Life magazine for the November 29, 1963 edition. The issues, a reported 7 million of them, were recalled after the print run when Kennedy was assassinated. A photograph of JFK replaced that of Staubach on the cover with new editorial content added. Staubach talked about that in a conversation I had with him a few years ago.

“That’s correct,” Staubach said. “That Friday afternoon, the magazines were on their way out, and [Life] pulled them back. I have a few copies, but most of them were destroyed, and they just redid the whole cover.”

Staubach went on to make his mark in football and in Dallas. He graduated from the Naval Academy and fulfilled his military service requirement (including a year in Vietnam). In 1969, as a 27-year-old rookie, he joined the Dallas Cowboys, who had drafted him in 1964. He led the Cowboys to nine consecutive winning seasons, including their first Super Bowl championship in 1972, for which he was named the game’s MVP.

The First "Hail Mary" Pass

Staubach was well known for his ability to rally the Cowboys, directing them to 23 come-from-behind victories in the fourth quarter, including 14 in the final two minutes of regulation. Less well-known perhaps is the fact that he threw the very first “Hail Mary” pass. 

“That term had never been used by the press or anybody else,” Staubach said. “In the past, if you threw a pass at the end of the game, it was the alley-oop or the bomb or whatever you wanted to call it.

“We were playing the Vikings in a playoff game and were behind 14-10. Drew Pearson made a heck of a catch—it wasn’t a great throw—and went in the end zone and we won 17-14. After the game, the press asked me what I was thinking about at the time.

“When I threw the ball I got hit. So I said, ‘I just closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.’ The next day, the press wrote ‘Hail Mary Pass Wins Game.’ ”

Not Mean Enough

Staubach revealed one other secret during our conversation. Remember the commercial with ex-Pittsburgh Steelers great Joe Greene and the little boy who famously offered Mean Joe his bottle of Coke? That aired during Super Bowl 14. It was a memorable spot. Less memorable is the footnote that Staubach was the original choice for the Greene role. The All-America quarterback, however, projected the wrong image.  

“Somebody asked me about that and said that I turned it down,” Staubach said, “but that’s not the case. I would have loved to do it. Some creative guy must have evaluated the concept and said, ‘Hey, we need a mean guy. It would be better to have Joe Greene than Staubach because Staubach’s a nice guy.’ 

“It probably made more sense, gave a more cuddly feeling to it, to have this big old tough football player give his jersey to this little boy. It turned out, I guess, it was the right decision, but I would have loved to do it.”

Staubach retired in 1979 with the NFL's No. 1 passer rating. Six years later, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.