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| Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, home to the Super Bowl. I haven't been there. |
We have a new set of Super Bowl qualifiers, the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, and the entire world is buzzing over the infusion of new excitement into the NFL's championship game.
No, it's not over Patrick Mahomes' premature ascension to the level of GOAT by scatterbrained pundits that don't remember a guy that just retired with seven rings on his hands, or the brash rookie quarterback that revived a storied West Coast franchise's fortunes. It's whether Taylor Swift can return in time to the Western Hemisphere from a concert commitment in Japan to see her boyfriend, Chiefs' tight end Travis Kelce, play in the big game in Las Vegas.
Well, that, among other things.
The advent of another Super Bowl usually sets me to thinking. I covered nine of them over my 42-year career as an NFL beat writer -- part of a career that got me to all of the NFL's host cities, or at least the ones the NFL called home by the time I retired.
Travel was fun. My Facebook page presents me every day with memories of past posts, and for the last few weeks, I've been seeing old snapshots I took during my 10-day relocations to the host cities. I'm a little too old these days to want to set up shop like that in unfamiliar surroundings, even if it was on my company's dole and not coming out of my own pocket, but it was a great experience -- and something, when I joined the staff of The Sun Chronicle on Feb. 7, 1977, that I never envisioned I'd have the opportunity to do.
During my 42 years on the Patriots beat, as I said, I got to visit all of the league's stadiums. But it set me to wondering exactly how many of those there were ... after all, most of the teams relocated to new facilities (sometimes even new cities) during that time. Indeed, so did the Patriots. I never went to one of their games during their tenures at Nickerson Field, Fenway Park, Harvard Stadium or BC's Alumni Stadium, but I was front and center as a high school kid in a distant 300-level seat at Schaefer Stadium when it opened in 1971, as I was as a writer for opening night at Gillette Stadium in 2002.
With that in mind, I thought I'd share with you the identities of all of those home venues and a few memories from each. We'll start with the AFC venues because there are a lot of stories to tell. Sit back and grab some snacks; this one is going to take a while.
BUFFALO BILLS
Highmark Stadium
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| The infamous ramp in Buffalo. |
Originally opened as Rich Stadium in 1973, a lot of people don't know that it was built from updated blueprints from Schaefer Stadium. It's as if they looked at what they did in Foxboro, figured out what they did wrong, and tried to fix it two years later. Look at photos of it, and you will see the familiar three-level footprint of our own long-departed precursor to Gillette.
After I left the beat, the stadium was reconfigured to turn the press box level into luxury boxes. I recall it to have had a terrific view of the field, but hardly any heat. Only the hot chocolate served in the press box made it tolerable on a cold winter day. The stadium also mirrored Schaefer in that to access the locker rooms after a game, reporters had to exit into the crowds leaving the game and walk around to an end zone administration building to reach an entrance to the ramp leading from the field. Venture too far down that ramp and out to the field surface, and you risked having 32-ounce beers thrown at your head by members of the Bills Mafia.
I don't miss the place, but I will be sad when it's replaced a few years from now. And if there's one thing I miss about Buffalo, it's a little place called Duff's in the town of Amherst, where they serve the best Buffalo wings in all of creation. Forget the Anchor Bar -- that's a tourist trap. Duff's is where Real Men go for their wings.
MIAMI DOLPHINS
Orange Bowl, Hard Rock Stadium
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| Pre-renovation Land Shark Stadium. |
Most of the games I have attended in Miami were at the stadium with many names -- originally Joe Robbie Stadium, built in the little hamlet of Miami Gardens and named for the legendary owner of the team, which went on to be known by a variety of corporate-sellout names, including Pro Player Stadium (athletic attire), Land Shark Stadium (beer), SunLife Stadium (insurance) and now Hard Rock Stadium (decadence). And I'm sure I left out a few.
But the funniest thing that happened to me in Miami was at at the old Orange Bowl during the 1985 season, in which the Patriots later advanced to Super Bowl 20. On the night when they won the AFC Championship Game there, reporters had to stay a long time to write their stories. And when we were finished, we found to our horror that the stadium staff had gotten everyone out of the old building and locked the gates as they left, not realizing there were about 15 writers and the Patriots' media relations director of the time, Jim Greenidge, still at work.
We covered the entire circumference of the stadium several times looking for a way out. None could be found. It got to the point that Pete Farley, then the sports editor of the Brockton Enterprise (and father of Glen Farley, who would cover the team for three decades afterward), shouted to some individuals hanging out outside the stadium for assistance. They just laughed; the Orange Bowl was not in a very nice neighborhood, and those out at that late hour would not be predisposed to help.
These were the days before cellular phones, so that further complicated our situation., But eventually, Greenidge found a working pay phone and called a Dolphins' executive, and eventually people came to set us free.
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| The baseball diamond at Joe Robbie. |
Joe Robbie Stadium, as Hard Rock was originally known, was an upgrade at the time of its opening. But it changed over time. First it became a baseball stadium as well, often leaving a cutout infield in the middle of the football field. Then, it also caved in to those that wanted more luxury-box space, so the football press box was squeezed into what had been the baseball press box before the Marlins moved out.
It was, by far, the worst view of the field in all of football. But if you had the misfortune of being assigned to the auxiliary booth a few levels lower, that was even worse. Fortunately, I never was.
I haven't been to the place since it underwent a considerable renovation, including faux roofing over the stands to protect South Floridians from the scorching sun. I'm told it's still a terrible place to watch a game.
NEW YORK JETS
NEW YORK GIANTS
Shea Stadium, Giants Stadium, MetLife Stadium
These two franchises have shared the same venues for several decades, but at least I date back to when the Jets played at Shea, home of the Mets, but very well adaptable to football.
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| Two stadiums in the Meadowlands. |
My first road game was a Patriots-Jets game in 1981, the first game in which punter Ken Hartley made his NFL debut. Ken was a King Philip graduate that attended Catawba College in North Carolina, and it was only natural that the local paper would assign me to take a 200-mile ride to Flushing Meadows to cover his game.
I don't remember much about the actual game. What I remember is that it was much easier to park at Shea than it weas in Foxboro, and that I typed my story on a portable typewriter and handed the copy paper and a $5 bill to someone from a company called "Amfax," so he could electronically send a copy of what I wrote to my newspaper over an amazing, newfangled thing called a fax machine.
Giants Stadium was quite an edifice. Although it was in the middle of a New Jersey swamp, it represented everything New York -- big, majestic, a commanding presence rising out of nowhere. And yet again, the media got the short end of the stick when, during a 1990s renovation, the press box was relocated to the top of the building, and it made the players look like ants below. The commerical jets landing at Newark Airport were closer.
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| Scoreboard rays prevent overpopulation. |
Ditto with MetLife. It is huge. A little on the soulless side, although they do have a way to change the ambient colors of the place from blue to green depending upon whose home game it is on that particular day.
The press box at MetLife is on the far left side of the field at the middle level of the stadium, but that means we're positioned right next to one of the four huge Jumbotron scoreboards at the corners of the stadium. You actually feel the images change on those boards, you're so close. If you're wondering why I've never had children, that may be the reason.
I drove to the Meadowlands more and more toward the end of my tenure of the beat, and one of the joys of the four-hour trip was, upon nearing the East Rutherford turnoff on New Jersey Route 17, passing by the "Bada Bing" -- the actual strip club (called "Satin Dolls") that was used for location shooting for "The Sopranos." Got to admit, I often looked to my right and saw (in my mind's eye, if not actually) Tony, Christopher, Paulie Walnuts, Silvio Dante and the rest of the crew planning their nefarious schemes.
PITTSBURGH STEELERS
Three Rivers Stadium, Acrisure Stadium
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| Three Rivers Stadium in the fall of 1976. |
I had attended a few baseball games at Three Rivers when I visited a friend during my college years, but I was also there for a memorable game involving the Patriots and Steelers.
It was during Bill Parcells' coaching tenure, and fans tended to walk around the circular bowl and pause at openings in the concourse that served as overlooks to the field. Often, they would crowd too much into the small space -- and on this particular afternoon, the guardrail gave way and several fans plunged to the field below -- only about 10-12 feet, so fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.
Once the game was over, I strolled over to the place where the debris had fallen, and I picked up a small chunk of concrete and pocketed it as a souvenir. I still have it, and it is displayed in my house next to some of the rubble from the demolition of Foxboro Stadium.
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| The Heinz Field press box. |
I will always remember its successor as Heinz Field and not the current name. I always thought the bright yellow seats were more reminiscent of mustard and not Heinz's signature product, ketchup, but the yellow was chosen as one of the Steelers' primary colors.
As the newer stadiums go, it was no better and no worse than most. Parking was a pain in the ass. The press box seating rows were very steeply configured to squeeze a lot of reporters into a relatively small space. But I will give them due props for having nearby restrooms that were impeccably clean and had at least 12 available stalls for our convenience. You don't know how important that is when your digestive tract occasionally rebels against press box food.
But I will say one thing for Heinz Field (or whatever it's called now). It is perfectly located at the confluence of three major rivers, it serves the need of its fan base, and it has been embraced by the fans -- especially now that the Pirates have their own nearby ballpark and the teams don't have to share a cookie-cutter monstrosity. And it was fun to see the Patriots stick their AFC Championship Game wins in the faces of those haughty Pittsburgh fans.
CINCINNATI BENGALS
Riverfront Stadium, Paul Brown Stadium
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| Riverfront Stadium, another 1960s cookie-cutter. |
What I remember most about Riverfront Stadium is not the stadium itself, but the fact that it was built almost touching the Ohio River. To go from the parking garage to the press box entrance, you'd walk outside onto a promenade that had a spectacular view of the river and all that entailed.
I also recall on my first visit to that city that Glen Farley and I walked out of the hotel after checking in, and found to our surprise that we were in the midst of the annual Oktoberfest staged in downtown Cincinnati -- a smorgasbord of food and beer and fun times that was ours for the taking. And we did.
Later, after resting up, we and other reporters ventured to a little hole-in-the-wall barbecue place called the "Barn Rib Pit." It was snuggled into a small space with a back-alley entrance, and you'd hardly know it was there. But once inside, you'd see the walls plastered with photos of great sports figures of Cincinnati's past, and like them, we'd soon be chowing down on some of the best barbecue ribs I've ever had.
Sadly, I learned later that the Barn Rib Pit met the wrecker's ball a few years after that visit, during a wave of urban renewal. It was not rebuilt or reopened elsewhere.
Years passed, and I didn't return to Cincy until after Paul Brown Stadium was opened. It was new and fresh, but kind of soulless, and it looked lopsided because the endzone scoreboard was designed to look as if it was styled by the designers that came up with tailfins for cars in the 1950s.
It was the 2001 season opener, and I watched future Patriot Corey Dillon run the Patriots into the ground for a disappointing defeat. The next day, I departed from Cincinnati for Chicago's O'Hare Airport, from where I went on to Boston. I drove directly from Logan to a friend's house in North Falmouth where I would take a few days off.
Upon waking up the next morning to the roar of fighter jets taking off from Otis Air Force Base and immediately going to afterburners, I turned on the television and saw the image of the World Trade Center towers billowing smoke from where commercial jets had crashed into them.
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| Paul Brown Stadium at night. |
I got to Paul Brown Stadium one more time, and although it was years later, the impact of Sept. 11, 2001, was still felt during that trip. I was given a parking pass to a garage under the stadium, and dutifully parked my rental there. But unbeknownst to me, those passes were invalid and stadium security towed my car from that space to an outdoor lot near the adjacent Great American Ballpark, home of the Reds. Of course, they didn't tell me.
After hours of wandering the lot, looking for my rental along with Worcester Telegram writer Rich Garven, and trying to call authorities only to have bad cellular service foil me at every turn, I was ready to accept a ride from a couple of photographers from the Providence Journal when, on our last pass through the expansive lot, I spied the blue Corolla in the distance, next to the baseball stadium.
It's a good thing, too, because I didn't have a spare $17,000 to pay the Hertz Corp. for a lost car.
CLEVELAND BROWNS
Municipal Stadium, Cleveland Browns Stadium
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| The "Mistake by the Lake." |
You may recall that there was a fairly momentous game in the 1994 AFC playoffs between Bill Parcells' upstart Patriots and the Cleveland Browns, coached by Parcells' former defensive coordinator with the Giants, some guy named Bill Belichick.
What you will learn only here was how awful a game it was for me to attend.
Back in those days, when I was in my early 40s, I used to suffer from irritable bowel syndrome. If you are offended by such information, I advise you to skip ahead a few paragraphs.
The playoff game was on Jan. 1, 1995. The temperature was in the high-teens and low-20s, and there was little in the way of climate control inside the old football press box at Municipal Stadium -- although writers that had been assigned to the auxiliary press box (also the baseball press box for the Indians) basked in warmth the whole game.
I had eaten a breakfast at my hotel before the game, and it didn't agree with me. About a half-hour before gametime, I was facing a fecal emergency. I had to go and I had no choice.
Inside this antiquated press box, there was just one bathroom -- exclusively for males (that was the state of American sportswriting of the day). And inside it was only one sit-down stall. Still wearing a full winter coat, I managed to squeeze into the tiny stall, dropped my naked ass upon the freezing-cold seat, and let loose with one of the worst imaginable cases of diarrhea possible. It was, in a word, hellacious.
About 15 minutes later, I emerged from the stall and opened the door to the press box -- where I was instantly greeted with exclamations of angst and various insults for having unleashed such an unmerciful stink upon my fellow writers. I can't say I blamed them, although given the state of media digestive tracts in the 1990s, it's not like I was the only one to have ever dropped a weapon of mass destruction inside a press box crapper.
The Patriots lost that game, and the other thing I recall is that post-game interviews had to be conducted in the hallway outside the tiny visiting team locker room. The toilets and showers had overflowed inside the lockers and spilled out into the open-air concourse beyond, and I recall interviewing Parcells while a river of shit and soapy water turned into ice around my feet.
Ah, Cleveland.
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| Yes, you can see Lake Erie from inside. |
When the new stadium opened to accommodate the expansion team known as the Browns, it was a godsend. Beautiful and modern, it was a shining addition to the lakefront landscape. Parking, however, was on a jetty that extended well into Lake Erie, built to accommodate loading docks for cargo ships.
On this particular day, which started out just a little cold and moderately breezy, the late Dick Cerasuolo of the Worcester Telegram and I parked in one of the spaces that was as far as it could be from the entrance of Cleveland Browns Stadium. Once we got to the press entrance, we somehow got a little confused with the new surroundings, and ended up walking through several luxury boxes until we realized we were on the wrong side of the stadium. The press box was on the opposite side.
The weather grew increasingly bad during the game, leading me to remember the immortal words of former Red Sox pitcher Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd ("That's what you get when you build a stadium next to the ocean.") Cerasuolo and I braved the walk to my car through squalls and lake spray, only to find that it was high tide, and that the rental was halfway wheels-deep in Lake Erie when we got there.
Yes, we walked through the water and managed to get into the car without flooding it, and we drove out of there without floating to Canada first.
The stadium was renamed FirstEnergy Stadium when naming rights were sold, but a big scandal has prompted the city to revoke naming rights and it will return to its original name this year.
Ah, Cleveland.
TENNESSEE TITANS
Nissan Stadium
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| Nissan Stadium, soon to go. |
It puzzles me that cities are so quick to replace their stadiums these days. Nissan Stadium (or Adelphia Stadium as I knew it) was perfectly fine for a city of Nashville's size. It's very similar to Gillette in size and mission, it has great sightlines and good parking, and when I was there, they had telephones at every press box seat location for our free use -- again, before the days when the Internet became the most important tool for the media.
As I am not into country music, I can't say I took much advantage of all Nashville has to offer in that area. The one thing that stands out in my memory was that the Marriott hotel in which I stayed was positioned so that my room's window afforded me a direct view of the playing field within Vanderbilt University's football stadium.
My last trip there was a quick in-and-out ... late arrival on a Saturday, full game day and early departure on Monday morning. My dinner on Friday night was an Outback Steakhouse that was just about to close for the night. Pretty pathetic, huh?
BALTIMORE RAVENS
Memorial Stadium, M&T Bank Stadium
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| Memorial Stadium for an Orioles' game. |
Regrettably, I never got to see the Colts play in Baltimore. But I did get to see their stadium -- Memorial Stadium, which I had visited for a four-game series against the Red Sox in 1978, in the first year of the Ravens' existence after their move from Cleveland.
By that time, Memorial Stadium was on its last legs. It had been built in a residential area many years earlier, and our parking was across the street in a Catholic high school's parking lot. I remember that the hallways leading from the media check-in to the press box elevator were old and grimy, with bathroom-style linoleum tiles that were practically worn through to the cement below. And although the Colts had played there for decades before, the Ravens' football press box was in end-zone space once used by the Orioles' media.
After the game, which was made memorable by rookie Tedy Bruschi's failure to catch a pass on a fake punt, I and five other writers prepared to cram into my rented Ford Crown Victoria for a ride back to our hotel. Once everyone put their computer bags in the large trunk of the car, I found to my horror that the trunk latch would not hold the lid shut. But crisis is the mother of invention; I took a telephone extension cord from my bag and tied the trunk shut.
It wasn't long thereafter that Memorial Stadium was razed. In its place now stands apartment buildings for seniors.
Also on that trip, I broke new ground in another area. The day before the game, I met a young woman in person at a brew pub in the Inner Harbor area of downtown. She and I met in an America Online chat room, and wouldn't you know it, we started from that meeting a relationship of long-distance dating that lasted for three years.
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| Johnny U at M&T. |
M&T Bank Stadium wasn't particularly memorable. I do remember being particularly impressed by the statue of Johnny Unitas in front of the main entrance, even though he never played a single snap of football inside it. I also chuckled at the full purple treatment of the seating bowl, although it was appropriate given the Ravens' team colors. Otherwise, it was what I had come to expect from the new wave of stadiums -- all roughly the same, with enough specific distinction to please the locals.
And it's close enough to the stadium that started the retro-look revolution in pro sports, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, making a once-dreary warehouse neighborhood into a hub of sports excitement -- except when it's time for another Super Bowl with the Ravens absent.
The Patriots almost lost a game there in 2007 that would have spoiled the perfect 16-0 regular season, but as we all know, that brush with history was meaningless in the end thanks to the Giants. And the relationship with Miss Baltimore ended badly. So much for Baltimore.
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
RCA Dome, Lucas Oil Stadium
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| The RCA Dome and its stupid banners. |
When the Colts moved out to Indy, it was like they had moved to another world -- a vast wasteland interrupted by a tiny little downtown, with an inflatable-roofed stadium dropped into the middle of it.
That was the RCA Dome, a glorified arena that pretended to be a stadium, where they hung divisional championship banners like participation trophies from the Teflon panels that constituted the roof.
I recall the Dome as always being colder than it should have been. The original press box was fully exposed to the stands and well within reach of those in the cheap seats to turn around and say hello -- or potentially steal our laptop computers, which thankfully, they never did. Hoosiers are far too polite.
This was another place where the owners decided they needed more luxury boxes, so not long before the stadium was razed to make way for Lucas Oil Stadium, they moved our press box as close to the ceiling as possible without us being able to touch the Teflon roof. They also installed speakers in the seating configuration of the press box that carried the sounds of the stadium noise (much of it prerecorded and fake) and public-address announcements directly into the ears of those sitting in the front row.
Try concentrating on your work with that cacophony in your eardrums for the whole game.
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| Lucas Oil Stadium. |
For everything that was bad about the RCA Dome, however, Indianapolis redeemed itself with Lucas Oil Stadium. That building is simply spectacular. It has the charm of the old Butler University field house in its design (see "Hoosiers" for reference), with a retractable roof that can open in only 11 minutes as well as a wall of windows that can open to ventilate the place and present a charming view of Indianapolis' changing skyline.
It's comfortable, easy to navigate, and was a spectacular site for Super Bowl 46 -- which, while another regrettable loss by the Patriots to the Giants, was one I enjoyed the most because of the nearness of my well-appointed hotel to the convention center (and media HQ) and the stadium. And it also helped that Indianapolis had a stretch of unseasonably warm winter weather that week, enhancing the walkable nature of the city's small downtown.
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| A truly impressive stadium in Indy. |
Of all of the newer stadium's I've visited, Lucas Oil has to be my favorite. It's just gorgeous. It mixes the retro elements with functionality, great sightlines and all the modern amenities. It may be the one thing that redeemed my opinion of Indianapolis for all time -- but there might be just one other thing.
Indiabapolis has one of the all-time best steakhouses in the world, St. Elmo's, which is nationally renowned for the quality of its cuts of beef and freshly-shipped seafood -- and, most of all, the incredible shrimp cocktails with a horseradish sauce that is guaranteed to clear your sinuses for a month.
And if you can't get in because of the high demand, take a short stroll down the street to Harry & Izzy's. It's under the same ownership and has most of the same menu items, including the shrimp cocktail. You can't go wrong.
JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
Everbank Field
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| Everbank Field. It's still a big dump. |
I only saw the Jaguars play once in what was originally the Gator Bowl, rebuilt and expanded to accommodate the NFL. It was a playoff game, one in which Scott Zolak started at quarterback because of a finger injury suffered by Drew Bledsoe, and he lost. It had been 25 degrees there the night before the game, and I remember feeling cheated because Florida is supposed to be warm in January.
But I was there for Super Bowl 39, in which the Patriots defeated the Philadelphia Eagles to firmly entrench the team's reputation as a dynasty.
Despite the best efforts of the forks in the city where my father met my mother in the waning days of World War II, what was then called ALLTEL Stadium was a dump. I was sitting next to an aisle in the press box, in the second of three rows, with Tom King of the Nashua Telegraph and Jen Toland of the Worcester Telegram sitting nearby, and as the game unfolded, I smelled something foul from below.
Needless to say, the men's room behind me was having plumbing issues, and water tainted with human waste was cascading down the steps next to my feet.
It was not long after that the Patriots were in a goal-line situation, and I blurted out to my friends nearby, "Everybody cover Vrabel." Obviously, the Eagles did not have any spies nearby; Mike Vrabel, one of the Patriots' linebackers, set up as an extra tight end and caught a touchdown pass, giving the Patriots full control of the game.
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| Bruschi at Media Day. |
This stadium was also notable in that it marked one of the last times that "Media Day," on the Monday of the week before the Super Bowl, was actually conducted in open air. The NFL later opted to have the huge gatherings of media inside domed stadiums, or other nearby enclosed facilities.
Super Bowl 39 also is memorable because there was a media scandal during the early stages of the hype week. One of the two reporters send by the Worcester Telegram was found to have plagiarized several stories during the season, including those by national writers as well as local scribes. He was immediately recalled to Worcester, and high school sportswriter Rich Garven was hurriedly dispatched to Jacksonville to join Jen Toland.
It was a dizzying situation for both writers, who never anticipated such a disruption in their duties. It was thus the task of the other reporters of the so-called "Suburban Alliance" -- reporters not operating in the shadows of the Boston or Providence writers -- to make this transition easier for them.
On top of all that, Jacksonville was a weird place to have a Super Bowl. City officials were proud to show off their redevelopment of the shoreline of the St. Johns River (no apostrophe), but that was good for a couple of hours of diversion and not much else. Besides, most of the New England media was housed in the Jacksonville Marriott, several miles south of the convention center, so our best bet for affordable and uncrowded entertainment was to head east on Fla. Route 202 toward Jacksonville Beach.
We found a place called the "Seven Bridges Brew Pub," which is still in operation. They had good food, freshly-brewed beer and live music. Toland coined a name for the band playing there that week -- the "Earthwind Moreland Band," she called it, because the lead singer resembled the little-known Patriots' backup cornerback of the time. That establishment became a favorite during our work week in Jacksonville, and more and more people were crammed into my rented Corolla as the week passed, all looking to blow off some steam away from the official NFL facilities.
Finally, with the game in the books, a group of reporters piled into their rented cars on the day before departure and drove all the way to the coast and the famous Route A1A, where not far from the TPC Sawgrass golf course, we found a little restaurant whose name I cannot remember. It was, however, the first time in my life that I had ever eaten alligator. I had spent much of my childhood making annual trips to central Florida to visit my grandparents, but I had never before eaten alligator.
Yup. It tasted like chicken.
HOUSTON TEXANS
NRG Stadium
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| Super Bowl 38 at then-Reliant Stadium. |
I have plenty of memories from Houston, given that I saw one Pats-Texans game and two Super Bowls in what was originally called Reliant Stadium. To chronicle all of them would use up all of this blog's bandwidth. So let's try to boil them down to the nuts and bolts as best I can.
The stadium itself is very impressive. It's huge, with a great view of the field from a palatial press box. And what amazes me the most is that it absolutely dwarfs the Astrodome, once regarded as one of the Modern Wonders of the World but now a deteriorating relic that nobody in the whole state of Texas seems to know what to do with.
Houston itself was a colossal disappointment in many ways. It's too spread out, has far too much traffic driving in and out of the city at almost all times of day, and, well, it's Texas. If there a state in the Union that has its head up its own ass as far as it can possibly go, it's Texas.
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Me and Rich Garven, before we had
to start re-writing everything. |
The last time I was there, I was privileged to see the best Super Bowl ever played. Of course, that was Super Bowl 51, the Patriots against Atlanta, rallying from a 28-3 deficit to win in overtime and all that. And it was the last Super Bowl I ever covered. At the time, I had a feeling my days on the road would be numbered because of the expense, and I remember telling a reporter seated next to me that if this was the last one I would ever see in person, I went out with the best.
Of course, that was after the Patriots started scoring touchdowns in the second half to make the comeback seem possible. And it was also after I cursed them out for forcing me to scrap everything I had written in the first half and starting from scratch in anticipation of an entirely new outcome.
Houston does have "good" barbecue, I'll give it that. During my first trip there, I frequented a place called "Goode Co. Barbeque," where you stood in a big tent outside the main building and went through a buffet line, and the servers would just heap piles and piles of BBQ on your plate before you couldn't carry any more. It was sumptuous. I'm told it was very popular with the baseball writers.
That called to mind my first trip to Houston, for Super Bowl 38. I arranged for a courtesy car from the NFL, a brand new Cadillac CTS, and I and four other writers took the 40-mile journey north to a town called Tomball, Texas, where the father of Patriots' linebacker Ted Johnson (Ted Sr.) ran a barbecue shack. We went in, introduced ourselves as New England writers, and were treated to an incredible feast while Ted's dad regaled us with stories of his son as a boy. And when he tried to comp us for the meal, every single one of us refused and paid good, hard U.S. currency for it, with a generous tip. Contrary to popular belief, reporters aren't always looking for handouts.
I went back there 13 years later, looking to renew acquaintances with Ted Sr. on my last day in Texas -- only to find that his restaurant was closed on Mondays. Damn.
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| Minute Maid Park, NFL style. |
The SB 51 visit also contained a unique "Media Day" for us reporters. The NFL had gotten out of the practice of having their first media gathering in the host stadium in the daytime, so for prime-time exposure, the league rented out the Astros' Minute Maid Park and let us stroll the entire playing surface going from player to player -- and all of live on the NFL Network.
In a way, we were fortunate any of that happened at all. Prior to Super Bowl Week, the Houston area was inundated with severe flooding from torrential rains. There were still portions of the city underwater when the NFL came calling. Not that the NFL cared at all, of course -- the show must go on, and it did.
Ironic it was that one of my more lasting memories of that trip was the swimming pool at the Marriott Hotel, built in the shape of the state of Texas. I don't remember seeing any razor wire around the pool's edge, however.
I know, that was long before the current foolishness in the Lone Star State. I just hope things straighten themselves out in a more Christian manner as the weeks and months ahead unfold. I don't want to look back at these photos wistfully at some point in the future, and then glance at the 49-star flag waving outside my house.
DENVER BRONCOS
Mile High Stadium, Empower Field at Mile High
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| The original Mile High, and its successor. |
If I have a favorite city among my travels, it is definitely Denver.
I love the mountains. I love the clear air (if you drive about 40 miles north, past Boulder, and get into the rarified air). I love the food. And I was always a fan of fresh Coors before you could get it anywhere and at any time.
Above all else, I loved the original Mile High Stadium. Nowhere else did I learn the real power of the NFL, from having more than 70,000 orange-clad fans screaming in unison at a big play in the end zone. I learned that when, near the end of a game, as I was walking on the field around the enclosed end of the old horseshoe to get to the locker-room entrance, Denver's Rulon James sacked Tony Eason in the end zone. I had industrial deafness for days afterward. ABC's Monday Night Football used to include a clip of that hit during the intro, but the sound would have blown out the speakers on your TV.
A lot of people don't know that Mile High was built to be a multi-purpose stadium to house the Class AAA Denver Bears as well as football. To that end, one side of the stadium was built so that it could be floated on small reservoirs of water and then moved into a baseball configuration. The press box was on that side, and since there was next to no concrete to weigh down the stands, they shook as if experiencing an 8.5 earthquake when fans would start jumping up and down on them. It certainly made me think the end was near in my first visit to the place.
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| Fans flock to whatever this place is called. |
The successor, again a multi-named facility that has managed to keep the "Mile High" tag on it as an afterthought, is certainly more modern. But Denver no longer has the loudest venue in the NFL because it's much larger and more spread out than its predecessor, and noise is not compressed into as small a space.
Still, Denver has had its great moments for me. I was also on the field for the famous intentional safety snap by Lonie Paxton that gave the Patriots possession one last time and gave Tom Brady the chance to throw the winning TD pass to David Givens. I was there for Ben Watson's 100-yard run to make a touchdown-saving tackle even though all hope was already gone in a playoff loss. And yes, I did see Peyton Manning and Wes Welker conspire to send the Patriots home from an AFC title game without another Super Bowl trip in hand.
I recall when Raymond Berry took the Patriots out to Colorado Springs to practice in cold weather and higher altitude before a playoff game. I made it to the Air Force Academy from Stapleton Airport just as practice was over and the only player left in the locker room was running back Craig James, but he was nice enough to heed my pleas for a few minutes of his time so I wouldn't go back to my hotel empty-handed and with no story to write.
Turns out the early departure was unnecessary. The weather was unseasonably warm on game day, sunny in the high-50s. The Patriots lost.
I was introduced to a true Western delicacy at a restaurant called The Fort in Morrison, Colo. -- Rocky Mountain Oysters, otherwise known as broiled buffalo testicles. Don't knock them if you haven't tried them. In a more traditional sense, I learned that buffalo steak, while more expensive, is much more healthy for you than beef.
And my first Indiana Jones hat? Bought it at a store in Denver, as well as two custom-made pairs of Nokona boots.
I even toured the Coors brewery in Golden. Sneezed the whole time because of all the grain dust in the air, but it was worth it.
I don't miss Denver's new airport, which I think is somewhere in Nebraska -- and if you look at the runways from above, they look like the configuration of a swastika.
I won't hold that against my favorite city, however.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
Arrowhead Stadium
I'm not going to go all Gaga (oops, wrong singer) over Arrowhead. It's in the middle of nowhere, the parking is utter chaos, the place was showing its age when I was out there last, and I almost died on that trip.
I'm not exaggerating. I may have been about two seconds away from being a sizzling chunk of flesh on the tarmac at Chicago's O'Hare Airport during my trip home.
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| I don't get the point about Arrowhead. |
It was Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. The Patriots had been embarrassed by the Chiefs, losing 41-14 on Monday Night Football, and I still had to get up early in the morning the next day to catch my flight to Chicago and make the connection to Logan. And because of the late game, two members of the Patriots Football Weekly staff were on the same plane, staying behind when the team charter left so they could remotely meet their deadlines for that week's publication.
The flight to Chicago was uneventful until we were headed for the runway at O'Hare. Suddenly, only a few seconds from wheels-down, the plane lurched up and began a tight circle around the control tower. A quick look out the windows on the starboard side of the aircraft provided me with a view of the right wing pointed directly perpendicular to the ground below.
I glanced back at the two staffers from PFW. They looked back at me. I'm sure the same thought crossed our minds, and it probably started with the words, "Jesus Christ ... !!!"
Apparently, another airplane found its way onto the same runway where we were supposed to land. These guys flying the plane were pros and they knew how to react, but for those of us that get mad when people creep up on us when we're trying to parallel park, it was waaaaaay too close for comfort.
We took a victory lap around the Chicago suburbs, landed without further challenge, and we were all off to Boston soon enough.
Hey, Kansas City has its positives. The barbecue is good, but the sauces are too sugary for me. Arrowhead has been upgraded and renovated since my trip, because it sorely needed it. And maybe the plans of the Royals to build their own baseball park downtown will benefit the Chiefs, because they will be able to fix their parking situation once Kaufmann Stadium is flattened.
Maybe they'll even build their own new stadium. They can call it their Mahomes Away From Home.
OAKLAND RAIDERS
Oakland-Alameida County Coliseum
OK, I know they don't play in Oakland anymore. If you want to see where they play now, go back to the top of this missive and you'll see a photo of the current venue. Take your time returning; we'll still be here when you get back.
The first time I saw the Raiders play, they were based at the Los Angeles Coliseum and they lost to the Patriots in the 1985 AFC Divisional Game. We'll be back to talk about Los Angeles when we get to the NFC portion of this retrospective.
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| Blow this up to see "It was a fumble." |
Of course, you know that the relocated Raiders lost to the Patriots in the famous Snow Bowl game in the 2001 playoffs, the last game ever played in Foxboro Stadium. Here, we regard that game as the springboard to a dynasty. In Oakland, memories of the Tuck Rule still send the few remaining Raiders fans into convulsions.
My first visit was on Oct. 17, 2002, just nine months after Brady's fumble in the snow was wiped off the books by an obscure, yet accurately applied rule. If a photo speaks a thousand words, this one falls short by 996. But those four words represent the mantra of Raider Nation that has persisted to this day.
I made it back to the Coliseum one more time, many years later, and the place was already falling into terrible disrepair. And the sight of middle-aged men with protruding bellies, dressed in full Goth regalia with plastic spikes protruding from their leather, walking into the entrances with full cases of beer slung over their shoulders, was surely a shock. The Wild West days of the old Foxboro Stadium were kid's play compared to just an average Sunday in Oakland.
Somehow, I don't believe the current crop of Raiders fans treat Allegiant Stadium the same way.
SAN DIEGO CHARGERS
Qualcomm Stadium
Again, this team no longer exists. It has moved back to Los Angeles (where it was founded in 1960 and then moved away the next year), and the stadium has since been demolished and replaced with a smaller venue that serves as home for a college team.
I made a few trips to San Diego over the years, but I will speak specifically about one memorable trip -- the AFC Divisional Game on Jan. 14, 2007.
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| Qualcomm: Gone but not forgotten. |
I was so happy to be going to San Diego in January. San Diego is known for having as close to perfect weather as is possible in the Lower 48; I learned that back in the 1980s, when I vacationed in the city twice and learned the joys that a trip to Black's Beach (and a well-scrubbed hot tub) could bring.
But maybe God decided to make me pay for my youthful excesses. I landed at San Diego International in the late hours of a Thursday night (so planned so I could get two full days of beach time), only to find the thermometer in my rental car reading 22 degrees Fahrenheit -- and it wasn't fooling.
The city and environs had been in the grip of an ungodly cold snap for a few days before my arrival -- severe enough that then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was petitioning the Federal government for disaster funds because all of the oranges were freezing on the trees. And it didn't get any better. Temperatures hovered in the 30s on Friday and Saturday, limiting my beach trips to quick stops for photo opportunities.
The mercury made it to the low 50s on the day of the game, but you must remember that I did not pack for winter weather. I had polo shirts and bathing suits, not North Face winter gear. And when I arrived at Qualcomm Stadium, I was in for another shock -- there were no windows in the press box. And why should there be? It was San Diego, built in a desert, where the temperature never drops below 70.
The whole game, chilly breezes whipped through the open-air press box. I had purchased a windbreaker at the team's pro shop, but I still had to sit on my hands for most of the game so they would be warm enough for me to type.
The Patriots won that game, Troy Brown making a huge play to save the day, and the unbeaten season was preserved for two more weeks -- until Super Bowl 42, of course. But it was probably the worst job of typing I have ever done in my life because my two typing fingers (and the others around them) were frozen to the bone.
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| Junior Seau: Still missed. |
There was one more trip later on that contained a particularly poignant moment. Junior Seau, who played for the Patriots at the end of his career, had retired to his native San Diego and seemed content to run his popular restaurant inside a huge shopping mall. On the day the Patriots arrived for an early-season game, team owner Robert Kraft and a large media contingent arrived at the restaurant, Kraft presenting a big check to help Seau's fundraising efforts to benefit Southern Californians who were displaced by a relentless series of wildfires.
It was a touching moment, Kraft presenting the check and speaking lovingly of Seau's contributions as a Patriot as both stood on a balcony overlooking the spacious interior of the dining room. Seau was genuinely touched by the gesture and implored the Chargers' fans in the restaurant to look kindly upon foes that had opened their hearts to them.
Not long after that, Seau was gone. He took his own life, unable to cope with the effects that years of brutal physical contact had upon his brain tissue.
COMING SOON: A look at my visits to NFC venues, plus a bonus one.
(Blogger's Note: Almost all of the photos used in this post were taken by me. The exceptions are the top shot of Allegiant Stadium (unknown), the aerial shot of Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati Inquirer), the aerial shot of Cleveland Municipal Stadium (unknown), the wide shot of Everbank Field (Florida Times-Union), old Mile High Stadium (Denver Post), Arrowhead Stadium (unknown) and Junior Seau (The Sun Chronicle).
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