One out of two isn't bad

By By Stan Torgeson / guest columnist
Jan. 29, 2003
One classic performance out of two football games isn't bad. We had two championship this month, College Football's and the Super Bowl. Ohio State vs. Miami was the classic. Tampa Bay vs. Oakland was, well, something a bit less than that.
Before we continue, we promised part two of our interview with Ole Miss chancellor Dr. Robert Khayat for this week. That will have to wait an extra week while we reflect on the Super Bowl.
It takes some reflecting. While the television announcers are hailing it as one of the great defensive classics of all time from a spectator's
viewpoint it was one quarter "wow" (the fourth), one quarter "not so bad" (the third) and two quarters of "shake me and wake me if I doze off" (the first and second).
A classic it was not, not that is, if you define "classic" to define
superb play, sharp blocking and tackling, pinpoint passing and sticky
fingered receivers who catch everything thrown their way that could have been caught or should have been caught.
Five Oakland passes intercepted, a blocked Tampa Bay field goal attempt that turned into a Raider touchdown and throws slipping through receivers hands like the proverbial greased pig at the county fair.
But if you extend the definition of the word "defense" to classic, that
it probably was. The old saying is defense wins football games. It certainly won this one.
In truth the first half was a study in frustration, almost dull when you
consider it was for the championship of the world. The third quarter picked up the level of performance and the fourth quarter was Abbott and Costello vs.The Three Stooges.
But give those final 15 minutes their due. When Tampa Bay decided to put the ball in the refrigerator Oakland would take it out and unthaw the darn thing. The blocked kick. Jerry Rice's touchdown catch. Suddenly a blowout was a 13-point game and visions of the greatest upset in Super Bowl history
started dancing the rough the collective heads of the group with whom I
watched the game.
When you're a pro team with talent, and Oakland is certainly that, 13 points can be picked up in a remarkably short period of time and everyone in our room knew it. The last minute interception by Dwight Smith put the cork back in the bottle, so to speak, a fitting ending to a bizarre 15 minutes which had made a ho-hum game up to the fourth quarter one that is probably still being discussed at most water coolers.
Great playing it wasn't. Exciting ending it was. And the best team won.
That's another thing. To someone who was in the main strongly neutral, I would have said I wanted Tampa to win if pressed to answer that question.
Two reasons. They were the NFL entry, playing in the same division as the New Orleans Saints and I make not pretense of being impartial and unbiased when it comes to the Saints.
Mainly, however, championships should be spread around, to go to
people who have never known the joy of wearing the ring that says they and their team was the best of whatever sport earned it for them. I'm tired of saying or writing "The World Champion New York Yankees." Would it be good for pro basketball if the Los Angeles Lakers won their fourth straight NBA title? Of course not.
Was the SEC East a truly balanced league as long as Florida and Tennessee, Tennessee and Florida kept alternating years as champions of their division? Anyone care to have Kentucky win a few more SEC basketball titles as opposed to say Ole Miss or South Carolina or Vanderbilt?
Would it have been just as good for professional football had Oakland won the Super Bowl, considering their record of four previous trips to the classic and three winners rings as a result? Wasn't a Tampa Bay victory better in view of the fact they had started their membership in the
big leagues of professional football 0-26 years ago and had never, ever won
the title?
In my 17 years broadcasting Ole Miss football I never knew the joy of
being associated with a championship team. In my 17 years calling their
basketball games the highlight was in 1981 when the Rebels won the conference tournament and the school included me on the ring list. I still have it, still wear it and still treasure it, even if it was 22 years ago.
Let me tell you, the frustration of trying and falling short over and over and over again makes finally winning that ring one of the sweetest memories any athlete can have. Ask the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or did you hear the pure joy in their voices postgame.
In New Orleans last weekend, over and over again we heard people
pulling for the Bucs "because the Saints beat them twice during the regular
season, the only team in the league to do that." New Orleans fans wanted the
reflected glory. Somehow it made them feel better about their team, even if
it had taken swan dives off the board into a pool with no water the last few
weeks of the season. Pride is where you find it.
There was yet another winner from this game. We watched it in true High Definition Television with a regular analog set by its side for comparison.
Prices will still have to come down some before the public begins to trade in the old way for the new but it is indeed the next revolution in TV. HDTV did to analog what Tampa Bay did to Oakland. It blew it away.