ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220056
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS
SOURCE: DAVID MARANISS THE WASHINGTON POST
From the shadowy corridors of the Superdome at 8:26 a.m. Tuesday, the vast media herd came lumbering down the aisles, past the purple and magenta seats and out onto the bright, verdant artificiality of the stadium floor. One of the annual rituals of the American sporting world was about to begin, an event whose name seems utterly redundant amid the perpetual jock-talk of Super Bowl Week-Media Day.
To a first-time observer, it looked like some mutant football variation of the old soap boxes at Hyde Park. Every 10 yards from one end zone to the other, there was a raised podium and a Green Bay Packer - or later a New England Patriot - up there yakking away on his own tower of babble, surrounded by a media cluster of microphones, cameras and notepads, the density of each cluster dictated more by athletic than oratorical skill.
The scene was the definition of pack journalism, so obvious and overwhelming that it somehow seemed less demeaning. No news, but if you had to do a quickie profile, you could at least find your guy somewhere in the multitudes. And there was no better place for a sociological examination of the Super Bowl subculture.
Like the political subculture so apparent in Washington during inauguration week, its football counterpart has its own hierarchy, one in which the line between observer and participant sometimes blurs at the top. In the political equivalent of Barbara Walters riding in the president's motorcade up to Capitol Hill, some journalists glided into the Superdome simply to be interviewed themselves.
John Madden and Pat Summerall, who will broadcast the game on the Fox network, are regarded as part of the story, assigned their own media session at which they draw larger clusters than most of the players. Joe Theismann of ESPN, working one level down in the subculture, was not offered a podium but held court on the sidelines nonetheless, displaying his Super Bowl ring and blabbing incessantly to a beehive of journalists. (In a brisk walk-by of the Theismann huddle, he could be heard intoning, ``Because of their greatness, because of their ability....'').
For the teams, the hierarchy is defined first by who gets his own podium, a place of stature determined by NFL officials. There were only 10 podiums, plus four specially marked chairs up in the seats. That left three dozen or so players on each team without an official soapbox from which to speak. For anonymous second-stringers, that could mean an hour spent in solitude amid the maddening crowd.
Some athletes are such characters that they don't need a podium to draw crowds. Jim McMahon, the Packers' backup quarterback, was not honored with a podium, but had one of the largest media clusters nonetheless. He held court while sitting on a folding chair (``Once a jerk, always a jerk,'' muttered a veteran Chicago scribe). He wore his customary dark shades and offered his usual array of smirks, obscenities and explanations that he had been misquoted or misinterpreted. McMahon spent 10 minutes talking about what he said or did at his last Super Bowl in New Orleans 11 years ago, when he mooned a helicopter and got some people so mad that they made threatening phone calls to his hotel room.
Andre Rison, the Packers' immodest wide receiver, with his ``Bad Moon'' tattoo glistening in the lights, also was denied a podium but never moved without a crowd. The MTV crew found his hip-hype manner especially to their liking, interviewing him on what foods the typical American family should consume at its Super Bowl holiday feast.
``Greens. Fried chicken. Candied yams. Little chitlin. Throw a ham in there,'' said Rison.
``Flapjacks?'' said his interrogator.
``You don't need no flapjacks,'' said Rison. ``But a holiday feast for a holiday. This is about bigger than the Grammies.''
The largest cluster of the day was down in the far end zone, surrounding Brett Favre, the Packers' MVP quarterback. He was sporting his Jim McMahon Jr. sunglasses, but was far more sociable and sensible with his questioners. Unlike McMahon, who seems to be staring into his own galaxy, Favre always turns to face his questioner directly. He was politely rotating around the large cluster facing him, until he finally received one question too many.
``Have you been asked any dumb questions?'' came the query.
``Oh, I don't know, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings,'' he said. ``None until that one.''
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines KEYWORDS: FOOTBALLby CNB