Jerry Summers
The games to determine who will be the final two combatants in Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9 in Caesar’s Superdome is underway to determine who will wind the National Football League Vince Lumbard trophy in New Orleans.
Lewis Grizzard (LG) always claimed to be a better ladies man than he was an athlete (exception in baseball) he did admit to being a Sunday afternoon viewer who proudly claimed to have developed a guide to defining modern football lingo in a style that would help the audience to understand the terms the late Howard Cosell would dispense to the audience before the boob tube (no sexist connotation intended.)
In “Shoot Low Boys- They’re Riding Shetland Ponies” (1985- Ballantine Books) he succinctly defined several applicable phrases that assisted the viewers to understand the game presently dominated by billionaire owners:
Shortly before his death on March 20, 1994 LG wrote another Super Bowl story that was originally published in his national network of 450 newspapers in February 1994 after the Dallas Cowboys- Buffalo Bills game in Atlanta:
“Sunday was my second Super Bowl. I went as a spectator to Atlanta's Georgis Dome to watch Dallas play Buffalo.
I went to my first Super Bowl in 1978 in New Orleans. I went there to work as a sports columnist for the "Atlanta Constitution".
A colleague and friend, Frank Hyland, went with me. He covered pro football for the "Journal”. We were dangerous together, me and Frank. We were also a lot younger.
We decided to ride the train from Atlanta to New Orleans. We left Sunday morning, a week before the game.
When the train pulled out, we went to the lounge car and started drinking beer The train stopped in Birmingham, Al. and a couple who had just married boarded on their way to a New Orleans honeymoon. The bride was still wearing her wedding dress.
They came to the lounge car, and Frank said, "My condolences," and bought them a beer.
When the train crossed the Mississippi line they wouldn't serve us any more beer because it was Sunday and they've serious about Sunday in Mississippi.
No problem. Frank went back to our roomette and got something to mix with orange juice he'd brought along in case of just such an emergency.
When the train arrived in New Orleans that evening Frank didn't want to get off.
"Where's the train go from here?" he asked me "El Paso," I said.
"I speak Spanish, too." said Frank.
I finally persuaded him to get off the train, but I forgot my typewriter, which went on to Texas. I bought another typewriter, but there wasn't much to write about.
The National Football League controls all the media coverage, and mostly what you do is interview robot players and coaches who have nothing to say. What's to say? It's just a football game.
So somebody told me about a leper colony near New Orleans. I decided to go there. I guess I was going to ask the lepers who they thought would win the game. I was desperate for a fresh angle.
I wound up talking mostly to a doctor who explained the biggest problem with leprosy is there are so many negative biblical references to it. People are ashamed when they get it and they wouldn't seek medical help.
He said all that stuff about it was always being highly contagious was wrong. I was happy to hear that.
I wrote a great leprosy column. My managing editor called me at my hotel room and told me only an idiot world write such a columns, and be told me to write something about the ballgame. My great leprosy column never ran.
I did hear one great story that week, though. A sports writer covering the Super Bowl was at a bar. A hooker comes up to him and says, "I'll do anything for 50 bucks."
He asks, "Anything?"
She says, "Anything."
So he says, "OK, here's 50 bucks. Go to my room and write a column and a sidebar."
I don't remember who won the game. I really don't remember who played.
Frank doesn't write sports anymore, and neither do I.
And I even gave up the orange juice.
Super Bowls come and Super Bowls go. Much too quickly.
I wonder if the train still goes to El Paso.”
(Diligent research has failed to disclose whether this article managed to be included in any of the 25 Best Sellers written by LG prior to his death but it is another great story!)
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