Super Bowl LVIII

  There seemed to be more hype and buildup for Super Bowl LVIII than just the regular overblown coverage. Maybe that is the nature of the beast, but I wonder how much viewers really care—or is it a way for the networks to cash in big time with so many commercials which are new? 

And if that isn’t enough, there is the betting aspect. Whether it has been through regular commercials or associated with the game, there are tons of betting opportunities called prop bets. You can bet on what dish Taylor Swift is going to eat first in her suite. Or the over/under in yardage gained after the catch for her boyfriend, Travis Kelce. This is the biggest day of the year for the gamblers, and there is no better place for a game which emphasizes betting than to be in the betting capital of the world, Las Vegas. (For the record, Vegas took a bath with the 9-1 odds on the game ending in overtime)

I am a purist to a degree. While I can enjoy gambling occasionally, it is not my kind of addiction. Watching the games themselves is all this guy needs to feel good. Gambling would make me insane, watching the points being scored while rooting for the oddsmaker’s favorite. It is far more enjoyable to see Steph Curry drain a ridiculous three point shot like he did with 2.7 seconds left versus Phoenix on Saturday night than to worry if the Warriors covered the point spread. 

Mercifully, I limited my TV watching to part of a retrospective on The NFL Today, which included having Brent Musberger, the face most associated with the program, and Jayne Kennedy, he first black woman to host this kind of studio show. Otherwise, I watched Caitlin Clark get shut out in the fourth quarter in her quest to become the leading scorer in Division I Women’s history, with Nebraska overcoming a deep deficit to send the #2 Hawkeyes to a crushing defeat. 

Before the game really began, I actually traveled to Denville, New Jersey to pick up Chinese food from my favorite place. I guess this showed where my mindset was. It didn’t help that there was an accident on Interstate 287 which slowed things down, nor was I happy that the restaurant ran out of one essential ingredient and the order had to be changed. 

Perhaps that was a harbinger of things to come. Nothing was going to be ordinary regarding the day, especially the Super Bowl.

It is not for me to recap each part of the game. Unless you live under a rock, which isn’t likely because you are reading this blog, you know the outcome of the game. Final score: Kansas City 25 San Francisco 22 in overtime. 

Instead, this was a game determined by ebbs and flows of emotion and expertise. Plus some luck. 

If the game was only three quarters long, then the Niners would be World Champions. San Francisco was the better team for much of the game. 

But the Kansas City Chiefs were defending champions for a reason—resiliency. Along with some really terrific football players who executed on the field. And a coaching staff which countered any moves from their opponents. 

Look, Brock Purdy did a most capable job playing in his first Super Bowl. The kid drafted last in his class, “Mr. Irrelevant” as the final draftee is called, is a solid quarterback. He managed the game well and actually put the Niners in a position to win the game in regulation. Moreover, he led the team to a field goal in the overtime period and asked his defense to make one more stop.

The Niners defense put plenty of pressure on Patrick Mahomes II at the start of the game. So much so that when Mahomes threw an interception, that broke a long streak of clean attempts in the playoffs. 

With the San Francisco offense operating in rhythm, fueled by the running of Christian Mc Caffrey and the accurate throws from Purdy, the game could have easily remained in the dominating grasp of SF. With the time of possession favoring the Niners, it was nearly miraculous that the Chiefs managed to stay within hailing distance at 10-3 with a late second quarter field goal. 

The game featured turnovers. Both teams had their share. For much of the game, it was really the kickers who prevailed. San Francisco’s Jake Moody broke a Super Bowl record with a 54 yard boot, only to be topped by Kansas City’s Harrison Butker later kicking a 57 yard field goal. 

Yet the singular play which changed the complexion of the game came upon an extra point. Kansas City managed to block the kick, which made the differential three points instead of four. This would later allow Butker to kick the game tying field goal with under ten seconds left in regulation to force OT. 

There has been much criticism about San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan opting to take the ball after winning the overtime coin toss. Some of his players said there was little if any discussion about the new rules for overtime which gives both teams a shot at the ball, even if the first team scores a touchdown. 

While KC players said they were familiar with the rules, in the end, it came down to what happened on the field. The Niners went deep into KC territory but their drive stalled. Faced with a 4th and 4, Shanahan fatefully sent the field goal unit onto the field where the resulting three points put the pressure squarely on the Chiefs. 

And that is where Mahomes, Kelce and the KC offense shined. Marching 75 yards downfield, Mahomes connected with a wide open Marcus Hardman (you recall him, Jets fans, and how the team misused him before sending him back to KC where he is once more a Super Bowl champion) and the celebrations began. 

Remember that the game wasn’t won just on this play. San Francisco had dominated play early on yet allowed the game to be a one score battle at the half. 

To me, what won the game was the moxie of the Chiefs. Defensive star Chris Jones held an impromptu meeting of the defensive players, exhorting his teammates to step it up. Which they did, executing the brilliant defensive strategies of Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnola. That turned the tide for Kansas City, along with a little luck when a punt struck a San Francisco players foot and the Chiefs recovered. 

Sure, the Niners scored on the Chiefs, including the trick play double pass which resulted in a touchdown. But when it came to crunch time, the KC defense was superb, giving Mahomes and the offense the chance to win the game. 

Mahomes reminds me of Steph Curry. Two very flashy and exciting players who know what the bright lights mean and can win championships when given the opportunity. This kind of DNA is hard to find. The parallels are this—both had fathers who played professional ball at the highest levels with success—Curry’s dad in the NBA and Mahomes’ father played baseball. Being around professional athletes at such a young age is a tremendous learning experience; it doesn’t hurt to be gifted with extraordinary talent too. 

Let’s shelve the talk about whether Mahomes is the greatest QB in NFL history. He’s young and he has produced better than anyone preceding him. We have to compare him to the bodies of work of Joe Montana and Tom Brady. It is simply too early to do that. 

As for talk of the Kansas City dynasty—that is fact. They are among a rare group of teams that are repeat Super Bowl champions. 

The talk of a there-peat is natural, although the odds are against that. Recall that KC was fortunate to navigate the land mines of games at Buffalo and Baltimore this season and get to the Big Game. 

For now, fans, like me, should savor one of the best games of Super Bowl history, watched by more people for a sporting event period (Thank you, Swifties, for your participation). This audience was surpassed only by the moon landing—which was the ultimate in sports TV.

That’s it. Super Bowl LVIII. 

Coaches

I attended two basketball games and two squash matches this weekend. All at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Only one ended up on the plus side for my alma mater. Yet it was enjoyable to be there. 

F&M plays big time squash. The squash courts of my days on campus have been converted into offices and meeting rooms. Now they are brightly lit in an area we knew as “The Pit,” a dank, dusty small dirt area where the spring teams used to practice, at its best when the dirt was softened by watering or at its worst when dry or muddied. 

I have many memories burned in my brain in that dimly lit part of the bowels of Mayser Center, the hub of F&M indoor sports. My Bobby Murcer bat was broken on the first swing in batting practice. Catching various pitchers left with me with assorted bruises, as I was the emergency catcher. And running sprints was pure hell with all the junk which circulated in that cold environment. 

It was a revelation to see the beautiful home of F&M Squash. Large pennants adorn the walls over the more than modest seating area by the courts. With the old windows overlooking the expanse, one can also get a birds eye view of the matches. There are modern scoreboards for each court and an array of stationary bicycles for the players to warm up their legs before and after the matches. 

What got me thinking about today’s topic arose from the basketball games. Seated seven rows behind the F&M bench, I was able to observe all of the coaching staffs in action. 

Plus in the stands was the legendary Glenn Robinson, whose name is painted on the floor at Mayser, a tribute to the man who has won the most games at the Division III level, and whose teams made five Final Fours, with banners flanking the wall by the main scoreboard. Many of his players made All-American status, and there is a listing of those individuals on another banner; Chris Finch, the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, has his name on that piece of cloth. 

My observations in this blog are about coaches. Whether we have played sports or watched games, coaches are omnipresent. For good reason. To make the players better and to try to bring success with their individual and collective actions. 

Most of the coaches cajole and yell in some fashion in an attempt to motivate their players. Others use sidebar methods of getting their less than subtle messages across. 

For some, they are highly successful. Of course, that depends on the receptivity of the players and their innate athletic ability to execute the game plan in the heat of competition. 

Styles and approaches vary. Almost every coach competed at some level. In the path to their latest stop, they have been influenced greatly by a number of leaders—both positively and negatively. 

Additionally, a coach is a salesperson. They have to sell the product to the player—and the families of those players too. There is a whole lot which goes into that piece to close the deal. 

We also hear many call coaches “teachers.” For many, especially at the secondary school level, they are in an actual classroom, working from a curriculum, addressing a wide array of individuals.  The ability to connect with students can be transferred to the playing fields in some degree. 

We lionize the ones most successful at their craft. And we castigate and fire those who fail at delivering victories. Bill Belichick, who recently left the New England Patriots after a couple of down years, has been lauded as the greatest coach ever in the National Football League for his teams’ six Super Bowl wins. Nick Saban, who recently retired from coaching after a journey which included stops at Michigan State, LSU, and an unsuccessful foray in the pros with the Miami Dolphins before landing at Alabama for the past 17 season, is widely considered to have been the greatest college football coach of all time based upon the winning so many national titles.

Walking through New York’s Penn Station on Sunday, I encountered a large sign promoting St. John’s basketball as the city’s college basketball team, probably due to its membership in the Big East Conference, a high level Division I group. What stood out besides the backdrop of the city was that St. John’s was promoting two Hall of Fame coaches—the gesticulating Lou Carnesecca and the mercurial current head man, Rick Pitino, who has won national titles at Kentucky, Louisville and did a stint as coach of the Knicks. 

The goal was to sell tickets for games at the arena above the station, Madison Square Garden. It had little to do with academics. St. John’s is not comparable to Princeton, where Mitch Henderson, the current coach at that institution, is an alumnus and judging by his successful teams, evidently knows how to reach his student-athletes who are potentially on a different academic level from St. John’s or most other schools.

Look at the recent managers of the New York Yankees. Both Joe Girardi and Aaron Boone are college graduates—Girardi from Northwestern and Boone from USC. While Boone hasn’t won a World Series like the former Yankees catcher, his laid back approach to the players was what was desired as opposed to the hardness of Girardi. No one questioned their fierce desire to win; it was a matter of how to reach the modern player which mattered. That was further demonstrated when Girardi was summarily fired mid-season in Philadelphia. 

I read a book about the legendary football coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant. The Junction Boys was an expose about the cruelty of the man at Texas A&M and how he brutally molded a team into a winning squad under incredibly horrible conditions in the hot Texas heat and humidity. It mortified me. 

Vince Lombardi became the head man at Green Bay. Clips of his style of yelling and cursing out his players have been replayed repeatedly. As have the rims showing his players carrying Lombardi off the field after triumphs in the NFL Championship and the Super Bowl. 

Fans and sportswriters adored the scholarly Lombardi, a graduate of St. Cecilia High School in Kearney, New Jersey and Fordham University, where he starred as one of the mythical “Seven Blocks of Granite.” Yet he employed and extolled toughness as a necessary evil. 

Contrasted with the cerebral, sarcastic nature of Phil Jackson dealing with superstars egos on the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. Or how William “Red” Holtzman used his Brooklyn/CCNY smarts to reach a collective group of exceptionally intelligent basketball 

players on New York Knicks championship teams of 1970 and 1973.

My exposure to coaches began early when I would ride my bicycle to watch the high school football team practice and play. I became a favorite of the head coach who let me play as an undersized freshman but mercifully led me to become the statistician for the team and be allowed to attend Sunday morning prep sessions for the next game and have a doughnut as my reward for delivering extensive statistics from the previous day’s contest. 

There, like in basketball, where I was the manager and scorekeeper, I observed a calmer, more focused demeanor off the playing surface, designed to select strategies most likely to result in wins. Which they largely did. But neither man was above screaming at players for mistakes made or to light a fire under the individual to perform better. 

One early baseball coach I had would not let me swing at the first strike. Which always looked so tantalizing. I got my first freshman and first varsity hits on the first pitch I saw. Because my coaches encouraged me to swing the bat. 

With cable TV, we now have access to NFL locker rooms and coaches like we never did before. This season we saw Robert Saleh and the New York Jets in training camp. Ivy Leaguer Mike Mc Daniel and his Miami Dolphins were the focus of the in season Hard Knocks. Two different coaches employing two different styles of leadership. 

The way sports is, coaches are a necessary evil. How we see them is determined by a prism and what shades we want to use. Boston Celtics Head Coach Arnold “Red” Auerbach was a pure S.O.B. Yet his players would run through a wall for him. Jets head man Rich Kotite could never garner the respect of his team, which led to the worst record in franchise history and his subsequent departure from his chosen profession. 

Watching the four coaches on the basketball floor, I saw four different approaches. There was more yelling from the male Muhlenberg women’s coach. His female counterpart seemed lost in strategy, perhaps trying to impart something late to a losing team in another losing game.

The men’s coach at Muhlenberg was more of an exhorter than the F&M coach, who was quiet, yet his demeanor and side comments to his assistants and players showed a different side of his methods. 

Glenn Robinson sat in the stands on Saturday, making a rare appearance since his retirement. He was a screamer on the sidelines, an obvious harsh taskmaster who worked towards perfection as much as possible. Which made his teams quite good. 

What struck me on this Basketball Alumni Day were the throngs of his former players who came back to campus. All gleeful and remaining, hugging the coach’s wife and chatting with her as well. 

Whatever his way of doing things was, his boys, now grown men with families, were  drawn back, happy to see their mentor. It was rewarding to see how the coach-player dynamic can create such relationships. In this instance.

I can go on and on about coaches, citing individual after individual I have seen over the years. Whether it was religious men molding players or stars like Deion Sanders who sold their personalities. There are too many to relate in in this short a session. 

But that is what motivated me today. To write about them. They must have had a lasting impact on me. Coaches. 

That Was My Week That Was In Sports

  There is a lot of sports to discuss. Some of it is familiar. Some isn’t. Most of the events of the week I watched. Or saw highlights. Let’s get going.

Since the penultimate weekend of January, scoring once more has taken off in the NBA. On a night where Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks put up 73 points to help the Mavs win a tight ballgame over the Atlanta Hawks. This is the fourth most-points in league history, only surpassed by Wilt Chamberlain and Kobe Bryant. For the season, Doncic is averaging 34.4 points per game, along with 8.6 rebounds, 9.4 assists while shooting a robust 48.8% from the floor. He should be this good—Doncic is receiving $40.06 million for his work. And as tremendous as Doncic’s average is, he still trails Joel Embiid of Philadelphia; Embiid is averaging 36.0 per contest. Doncic is third in the NBA in assists and second in 3-pointers made, significantly behind the superlative Stephon Curry. 

Yet Doncic and his Dallas team finds itself in eighth place in the Western Conference. Which is why the stellar play of Nikola Jokic and Embiid make them the frontrunners to be the NBA M.V.P. Maybe his 45 point night on Monday will get him into the conversation; but I rank him about fifth at best unless the Mavs go on a run to threaten the top teams come the end of the season. 

On that same night, Devin Booker scored 62 points for Phoenix in a loss to Indiana. During that week, Booker averaged 42.0 points per game, along with 5.0 rebounds and shot an amazing 63.9% from the field. Which is why Booker, not Doncic, was named Western Conference Player of the Week. Booker’s play alongside perennial scorer Kevin Durant, who scored 43 points last week, is why the Suns are surging and have a slot in the playoffs if the season ended today. 

I don’t have an answer as to why the scoring is up in the NBA. Sure, the players are bigger and better shooters. Yet there seems to be a modicum of defense being played. 

My wife and I watched the Los Angeles Lakers travel to San Francisco to take on the Warriors in the featured Saturday night game on ABC. Lebron James against Curry. Two teams headed in a downward direction after so much success, which included the Lakers win in the Play-In Tournament. 

Whenever the two surefire Hall of Fame players meet, there are fireworks. This game did not disappoint. It took double overtime to determine a winner. Lebron getting fouled with just a second or so left on the clock led to free throws sealing the outcome; the wide disparity in foul shots in favor of LA (43-16) contributed to the Lakers’ win. 

Lebron ended the night with a triple double. Curry scored 46 points in a losing effort, again and again reducing the Warriors. Supporting players D’Angelo Russell of LA and Klay Thompson of GSW hit key shots to extend the game. 

It was a magical, throwback evening. Good if you rooted for LA but not if you were a Warriors fan. This is what superstars can do in the NBA. Cheers to two of the best ever. 

I finally watched some college basketball this week. I saw two Franklin and Marshall games. In the first one, the Diplomats knocked Gettysburg from a three way tie atop the Centennials standings. Saturday’s trip to Westminster, Maryland to take on a determined McDaniel squad took two overtimes for the men from Lancaster to prevail. 

Knotted with #16 John Hopkins, both teams could settle the top seed for the playoffs on February 6th in Baltimore. The Massey Ratings, the definitive guide to DIII sports, has F&M ranked only #56 because the three losses the team has suffered were to the only teams played so far which are ranked higher. They have to keep on winning and beat Hopkins to get into the NCAA’s. 

I saw #1 UConn roll; #2 Purdue handle Rutgers in Piscataway; and I watched #4 Houston defeat Texas in OT. I caught Northwestern once more take out a Top 25 team, this time then-number 10 Illinois, which went down in overtime. 

Princeton, my sweetheart team in the Ivy League, took it on the chin from a very formidable Cornell squad in Ithaca on Saturday. New Mexico, one of my dark horse teams, is now ranked #19. I briefly caught now-#6 Wisconsin clobber Michigan State; this is a legitimately good team. 

A lot will happen with the ranked teams this week. Duke and North Carolina meet in Durham on Saturday. Tennessee and Kentucky tangle. As does Houston and Kansas. 

It is the end of January entering the beginning of February. Most schools have already played 20 games. It will take the conclusion to the regular season and the conference championships to settle everything. Even then, as we learned last year, the seedings for the NCAA Tournament are a crapshoot, negating the strength of schools like FAU and San Diego State along with Princeton.

I doubt the Selection Committee will deviate from its analytics. Which may lead us to more March Madness. 

There was some tennis to report. Coco Gauff could not make it to the finals. The reigning US Open champion lost to eventual winner, second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka. 

On the men’s side, #4 seed Jannik Sinner of Italy disposed of the perhaps G.O.A.T., Novak Djokovic in four sets. He then dispatched third-seeded Daniil Medvedv in a thrilling come-from-behind five set match. Keep an eye on this 22 year old. Stardom may be in his future. 

Quickly throwing in some hockey, defending Stanley Cup champs, the Vegas Golden Knights, came to the Metropolitan area this past week. New Jersey downed the Knights in OT. Then the team regrouped and trounced the Rangers and Islanders. I think the Cups goes through the desert once more. 

Sentimentally, newly-installed Islanders head coach, Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy, led his team to Montreal, where his retired number hangs from the rafters. The cheers before the game for their hero were loud and emotional. The Canadiens fans went home even happier, as the Habs won the game. 

Oh, yeah, there was some football, too. The two teams which will play in the Super Bowl were determined on Sunday. In two very hard fought, sometimes chippy affairs, Kansas City and San Francisco emerged victorious. 

If you didn’t watch the games, shame on you. Both matchups screamed of multiple storylines going into the games as well as what transpired. 

Kansas City had been maligned for its less-than-sterling play during the regular season. While the Chiefs and QB Patrick Mahomes II did win the AFC West, it wasn’t as if KC was dominating. Future Hall of Fame tight end and Taylor Swift’s beau took abuse for his lackluster games; too many people tried to blame it on a lack of focus, with his attention on his girlfriend, not his game. 

Meanwhile, Baltimore, led by a sure bet to win the league M.V.P. award, Lamar Jackson, and a stifling defense, continued the kind of play that had been dismantling teams all season and in its playoff win over Houston. With KC not having played a road playoff game in the Mahomes era, so-called experts doubted the team could win at Buffalo and when they did, still felt that Baltimore would emerge as the AFC Super Bowl representative. 

Except that with some good defense, including forcing a fumble on a run near the goal line which would have tightened the contest, and Mahomes and Kelce having another playoff monster game, KC proved its doubters wrong.  That post-game smooch between Trav and Tay plus the heartwarming finger pointing between Chiefs coach Andy Reid and Swift punctuated why this team deserved to be in the Super Bowl—again. 

Did the Ravens choke? I don’t know. Could the play calling have been better? Yes. Untimely penalties? Absolutely. Did the karma favor KC? Perhaps. Baltimore will lick its wounds and watch KC try to secure its dynasty status.

Kudos to the 49’ers. At home against upstart Detroit, almost everyone’s darling—a team which had not won a championship since 1957—SF took a beating in the first half. 

With a lot of luck on a pass deflecting off of a Detroit defender and into a Niners receivers arms, along with some boneheaded decisions to go for it on fourth down by Lions head man Dan Campbell which did not work out, a totally revitalized SF group outplayed the Lions in the second half, overcoming a 17 point deficit and hanging on to win by three points. 

Those naysayers who have jumped on the anti-Brock Purdy bandwagon should think twice about his ability to play in big games. He did it against Green Bay and followed up his winning football in masterfully guiding the Niners to victory. 

On paper, the Niners are the stronger team on both sides of the ball. But this is Kansas City, and Mahomes, Kelce and company don’t lose very often on the big stage. 

Which is why, mentioning stages, there is at the subplot of whether good luck charm Swift can jet from Tokyo, where her Eras Tour restarts in February, to Las Vegas in time for the game, then hurry back to Japan and Australia. Good luck seems to be on her side lately. 

That’s it. That was my week that was in sports.