LIFE
THE SUPER BOWL If you somehow missed the Super Bowl matchup between the Giants and the Patriots, you might have missed one of the most important sporting spectacles in recent memory. Of course there are those of you who don’t care about football, or any other sport for that matter. But what attracts people to football? Some people are drawn to the game by sports betting, chicken wings and beer, or the social aspect of the abundance of parties. All that aside, there are those of us who watched the Super Bowl for no other reason than the love for football. We were treated by the National Football League to a game so competitive it came down to the fourth quarter to clearly determine a winning team. So what made the game so compelling? What are the selling points? A 2007 Super Bowl rematch between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants with the latter being victorious in both games. Eli Manning, the quarterback for the New York Giants, has now won more Super Bowls than his brother Peyton, who has been viewed by many for most of his career as vastly superior in all aspects of the game when compared to Eli. The final score of this year’s Super Bowl was also 21-17 Giants, which I do not believe I heard anyone predict in the overhyped buildup to the Super Bowl that lasts about two weeks. During these two weeks you get to know everything from the player’s stats, to their favorite foods. Of course there is also the buildup for
BY MARK VASEY
the halftime show that either bores, shocks, or does some combination of the two aspects at the same time. This year we got a blast from the past with Madonna accompanied by an ensemble of modern stars including LMFAO, Cee Lo Green, Nicki Minaj, and M.I.A.. I had no idea that M.I.A. was still around until she provided the shock value that the NFL and NBC are desperately trying to avoid yearly, ever since the infamous wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson. For those of you who missed this year’s moment of atrocity, it involved an expletive and a finger that Eminem has made famous. The Super Bowl could be talked about for days and days, and will be. It will be analyzed repeatedly, players entire careers will be judged on one game, but in the end does any of it really matter? I’m not sure, and someone please tell the National Football League to put the fun back in the game, or at least the halftime show. Now it’s over and we have to wait a year for the Super Bowl to come back with the highest level of sports performance and the lowest levels of halftime performance quality. Let’s start loading up on wings and beer!
11