The Ghost of Super Bowls Past: Part III (ages 18-23)

The third installment of our series of posts about my previous Super Bowl viewing experiences:

In January 1988, the Washington Redskins played the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. I was still smarting over the Minnesota Vikings’ 17-10 loss to the Redskins a couple of weeks earlier, in the NFC Championship Game, but I was determined to enjoy the Super Bowl nonetheless.

A good friend of mine had gotten engaged a few weeks prior to the game, and he invited me, along with another friend of ours, to his future in-laws’ house to watch the game. We had a pretty good time, and dined in a manner which was appropriate for the occasion. As to the game itself, after falling behind by a 10-0 score in the first quarter, the Redskins put together what is probably still the most dominant quarter of football I’ve ever seen, scoring 35 points in the second quarter to take a 35-10 lead at halftime. The final score was 42-10.

This particular Super Bowl was much more memorable for what happened after the game. During the fourth quarter, with the game clearly in hand for the Redskins, the broadcast showed several shots of Redskins fans partying in the Georgetown area. After the third such shot, our recently-engaged friend said, “You know, we could probably get down there in less than an hour.” My other friend and I just looked at each other and shrugged, as if to say “why not?” and off we went, listening to the final few minutes of the game on the radio.

We got to D.C. and drove right into one of the greatest party scenes I’ve ever seen. Given the mediocre state of the Redskins franchise nowadays, people tend to forget how crazy the Redskins’ fans are about their team. The Redskins currently boast the longest streak of sellouts in the NFL, having sold every ticket to every home game they’ve played since 1967. (Yes, you read that correctly. 1967).

We drove through the Georgetown area, and just sat in a massive traffic jam, as people danced in the streets. Interestingly, the Redskins had just won the Super Bowl five years earlier, so it wasn’t exactly a title-starved fan base (like, for instance, the beleaguered Vikings’ fans). At one point, we entertained ourselves by pretending to not know who had won the Super Bowl. We called out to anyone who was close enough to our car and asked, “Hey, does anyone know who won the Super Bowl?” Most people looked at us like we were crazy, but this one guy, who must’ve been an exchange student or something from somewhere in Africa, said to us, in this incredibly wacky accent, “The Redskins win the Super, 42 for them 10 for the others. We are very, very happy!” Back in the late ‘80s, before everyone became so uptight, this was considered extremely funny. Trust me on this one.

By the next year, my friend had gotten married, and he just made the Super Bowl party at his apartment. The party was a lot of fun; there must have been over 20 people crowded into that place. The food was plentiful and excellent. Bear in mind that this particular friend of mine is from Texas, and they just know a lot more than the rest of us when it comes to roasting animal flesh over an open fire. The group must have consumed at least an entire side of beef. I’m pretty sure this party marked the first time I’d heard the word “mesquite” used in a sentence. I opted not to participate in the baked bean –eating contest, but it was definitely fun to watch.

The game itself, which pitted the San Francisco 49ers against the Cincinnati Bengals, provided the first exciting finish to a Super Bowl game in years. It was a dull, low-scoring affair for most of the time, as the teams were tied 3-3 at halftime, and 6-6 late in the third quarter. However, late in the game, with the 49ers trailing 16-13, Joe Montana, the 49ers’ quarterback, led the team on an epic, 92-yard drive in the final three minutes, capped by a perfectly-thrown 10-yard scoring pass to John Taylor.

Although the 49ers had already won two Super Bowls with Joe Montana at the helm, this game probably did more than anything to cement his reputation as a great big-game performer. As a quarterback, Montana did not have the strongest arm, but he was incredibly precise, and he was always at his best in the big games, never overwhelmed by the moment. Legend has it that when the 49ers started their final drive in that Super Bowl, backed up at their own 8 yard line, and trailing by 3 points with only 3 minutes left, Montana looked at his teammates in the huddle, and before calling out the play, said something like, “Hey, I think I just saw John Candy in the stands. How cool is that?”

Then, there was his name. Joe Montana. Joe Montana. I used to wonder if that was his real name (It is). If you were pitching a show to the Cartoon Network, and your main character was named Joe Montana, here’s what the network’s executives would probably tell you:
Hey, we really love the show. The animation is great, the writing is funny and hip, and the story lines are really attention grabbing. One thing, though. Joe Montana? Really? Doesn’t that sound a bit too cartoonish? How about something more subtle, like Bobby Blammo?

If you asked 10 avid football fans to name the greatest quarterback of all time, you’d probably get at least 7 different answers. But, if you had one game to win, and you could choose any quarterback in history for your team, it would probably be Joe Montana.

When the Super Bowl rolled around in January of 1990, I was in Israel, and I knew that watching the game would pose a logistical challenge. Of course, I found a solution. Some people had arranged a slightly tape-delayed viewing of the game in a local movie theater. Basically, some guy was recording the game in four quarterly pieces (it was available in Israel if you had the right satellite capability), and sending it to the theater, where they had hooked up a VCR to the giant screen. More than 200 people showed up to watch the game, which began at about 2AM, and finished sometime around 6AM. To this day, this represents the largest group with which I have watched the Super Bowl. It is also the only time I’ve had to pay to watch the game. The organizers of the event also set up a concession stand, from which I purchased a soda or two. As for food, I simply went to a store before the game, bought some food, and slipped a schwarma-filled pita into either pants pocket and walked in. About 5 minutes into the game, I realized that about 150 other people had done the same thing.

The game itself, between the 49ers and the Broncos, was completely uncompetitive, with the 49ers taking a 27-3 halftime lead en-route to a 55-10 blowout victory. I’m pretty sure the 49ers could’ve scored 70 points that night, if they had wanted to.
Back in the States the next year, I attended, along with about a dozen of my closest friends, an excellent party, at the home of a guy we knew who lived in town. I was 21 years old, and at that age, it was important to be friendly with guys who were a couple of years older than you and married, with their own homes and televisions.
The primary menu items were make-your-own submarine (“hero”) sandwiches. Our host set up a long table full of sliced meats, sub rolls, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and more condiments than I knew existed. (Hey, I was young, and naïve). This was the first time I had eaten sandwiches such as these at a Super Bowl party, and I was hooked. This was the perfect item. You could tailor the sandwich to your specifications, and you didn’t have to worry about your food getting cold. In other words, each partygoer could eat at his own pace.

To be sure, I’ll never turn down a hamburger, any time of day or night. The hamburger is a divine gift to mankind, an obvious manifestation of G-d’s boundless benevolence. Still, the hero sandwich makes a better Super Bowl party menu item. Ever since Super Bowl XXV, the hero sandwich has been a staple of my Super Bowl menu.

That year, the game featured the Buffalo Bills against the New York Giants. The Giants gave the favored Bills all they could handle, and the score was 20-19 in favor of the Giants, with 8 seconds left, when Buffalo’s kicker, Scott Norwood, lined up for a 47-yard field goal, which would have given the Bills the victory, if it had been successful. Alas, Norwood’s kick was wide to the right, and the Giants won. This game turned out to be the first of four consecutive Super Bowl appearances for the Bills, but it was also the closest they came to actually winning. The next three games would be blowouts.

For Super Bowl XXVI, I attended a party at the home of another friend of mine, and as usual, the food was good, and there was a large group of attendees. The Washington Redskins beat the Buffalo Bills 37-24, in a game that was not as close as the final score indicated. The Redskins led 37-10, before the Bills scored two meaningless touchdowns late in the game.

That year, I was actually faced with a bit of a dilemma as to which party to attend, as I had been invited to two. It was pretty obvious to me which party I wanted to attend (the one I ended up going to), but a very close friend of mine tried his hardest in the week leading up to the game to go to the other party. This particular friend has never been much of a football fan, but he liked a good party as much as the next guy. It was pretty obvious to me why he wanted to attend that other party. Through the grapevine, he had heard that some of the local girls he knew would be at the party. (The home of the guy who was hosting that party was something of a local hangout). Unfortunately, this violated one of my primary Super Bowl rules at the time: No girls. As it turned out, the local females also had a similar, unwritten rule for all of their Super Bowl parties (or just about any other occasion as well): No MBB. So, I attended one party, and my friend went to the other one.

By the time the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys lined up for Super Bowl XXVII, FBB and I had just recently become engaged (to each other). The party that year was at my parents’ house; my brother had invited a bunch of friends over. There was a generally festive atmosphere in place, as my parents were in a very good mood, owing to their having solved their “MBB problem.” They even allowed my brother and me to bring a small table into the den from the living room (i.e. The Room That Shall Never Be Entered), to be used as our “meat table.” My brother and I grilled every kind of meat we could get our hands on. We had beef, veal, lamb, turkey, chicken, hot dogs, and a wide assortment of sausage. We also introduced serious pastry into the equation, hence the requirement of a “pie table.”

During the second half of the game, which was as a 52-17 rout in favor of the Cowboys, a close friend of mine came by. Earlier that day, he had gotten engaged to a girl who lived about 20 minutes away from me, and knowing that he’d be in the area, I had invited him to come watch the game as soon as he could get away. The two of us had watched several Super Bowls together, and his attendance at that game added to the already festive atmosphere.

That game marked the last Super Bowl that I watched as a single man. Beginning the next year, FBB would be part of the equation. At the time, I had no idea what to expect.