This is going to be Super Bowl XXXI, and it is with no pride whatsoever that I have to report having watched the preceding XXX. Only two have left memories in my mind. The first, when Joe Namath and the Jets shocked the greatly favored Baltimore Colts. The second, when my own team, the Chicago Bears, crushed the New England Patriots. For the rest, all those Sundays now constitute a blur, in which I can barely make out the lined faces of the tyrannical Vince Lombardi, the merciless Don Shula, the phlegmatic Tom Landry, and the anxious Marv Levy.
According to a recent piece in the New York Times Magazine, interest in professional football has greatly lessened in recent years. I suspect this is true, even though it was printed in the New York Times. It has lessened greatly for me, with more than fifty years in the supine business of being a sports fan. The athletes no longer seem admirable or even interesting, and are exceeded in unattractiveness only by the small but dreary pack of owners; the money has screwed things up hugely; and the hype is no longer even close to believable. I should like it much better, in fact, if they began to call it, instead of the Super Bowl, the Nice Bowl, and, while at it, dropped the Roman numerals.
