Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
January 26, 2001, Washington Post

Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the biggest sports event in America. Bigger than the World Series, the Indianapolis 500 or the U.S. Open anything.

More people will sit down and watch the big game this Sunday than any game this year. Last year, about 132 million people (almost half the country) tuned into Super Bowl XXXIV. That’s a lot of folks watching football and eating pizza and nachos.

But the Super Bowl was not always such a big deal. In fact, the first Super Bowl was not even called the Super Bowl. It was called the AFL-NFL World Championship. The game was played in January 1967 and it wasn’t even a sellout. The stadium in Los Angeles had about 30,000 empty seats.

Back then, there were two football leagues, the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). The older NFL had been around since 1920 and thought that its teams were much better than the teams in the newer AFL.

For the first two championship games, it seemed that the NFL was right. The NFL champs, the Green Bay Packers, wiped the field with the AFL’s best both times.

But all that changed in the third game. Even the name changed: Football’s biggest matchup was now called the Super Bowl.

The AFL champs were the New York Jets. Their quarterback, Joe Willie Namath, was so cool and cocky that he “guaranteed” that the Jets would knock off that year’s NFL champion, the Baltimore Colts.

Everybody thought the Colts would cream the Jets. But everybody was wrong, and Joe Namath was right. The Jets shocked the Colts and the NFL, 16-7.

Suddenly the Super Bowl was biggest game of all.

But just because it was called the Super Bowl did not always mean that it was a super game. Lots of years, after weeks of Super Bowl talk and analyses, one team would just slaughter the other team. Scores such as 46-10, 55-10 and 52-17 sometimes made the Super Bowl into the Stupid Bowl.

Last year’s game was maybe the best Super Bowl ever. The St. Louis Rams edged the Tennessee Titans in a heart-stopping battle that went down to the very last play.

But what about this year? What about the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Giants?

It is hard to say anything about this matchup except that it probably will be low-scoring. Both teams are super strong on defense and so-so on offense. In fact, the Ravens defense may be the best ever. So like a World Cup soccer match or a third-grade basketball game, this may be a Super Bowl where a single score may change everything.

I’ll say Ravens win 13-10 in a squeaker.

Now, pass the nachos.

FRED BOWEN is the author of sports novels for kids. Write to him at KidsPost,
1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071. Or e-mail (with “The Score” in the
subject field): kidspost@washpost.com.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company