Super Bowl XLII - Arizona Super Bowl XLII Host Committee Gets Ready For 2008 Game - AZCentral.com

Glendale prepping for Super Bowl XLII
Scott Wong

The Arizona Republic
Feb. 7, 2007 12:00 AM

MIAMI -When the clock hit zero Sunday night at Dolphin Stadium, and the Indianapolis Colts were crowned the NFL champs, planning efforts for Super Bowl XLII at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale kicked into high gear.

This time next year, more than 175,000 visitors will flood the state in a span of a week. Hotels, restaurants and local attractions will be brimming with out-of-towners.

And game-related festivities, from an National Football League interactive theme park to swanky VIP parties, will extend to every corner of the Valley, making the region the hub of the football universe.

To pull off the colossal undertaking, organizers from the Arizona Super Bowl XLII Host Committee will need a solid foundation: an estimated $15million in public and private sponsorship and an army of 10,000 volunteers.

"There's no question, it's massive. And every day, the energy ramps up," committee President Bob Sullivan said earlier this week over the chatter of dozens of sports radio hosts broadcasting from the floor of the sprawling Media Center in Miami Beach. "It's daunting but it's calming, because (being here) allays some of the anxieties.

"The unknown becomes the known."

Sullivan is part of an Arizona contingent of more than 60 tourism, transportation, law enforcement and other officials that has been in Miami since last weekend. They've been scrutinizing everything from airport security and shuttle routes to jerk-chicken skewers at a media party.

Those are just a couple of the thousands of details that go in to planning for a weeklong extravaganza that attracts America's wealthiest executives and celebrities, is beamed to television sets in more than 230 countries and is expected to give a $400 million boost to Arizona's economy.

"Everybody wants a piece of the action," said Jack Clary, a former reporter and Super Bowl media consultant from Boston who has attended all but the first two bowl games. "It's grown from a media event into a business event."

Arizona organizers will tackle the mega-event by breaking it down into parts: media relations, hospitality, transportation, security and special events, among others.

The host committee's more tangible efforts include staging up to three exclusive media parties and organizing football clinics for 20,000 youths.

Also in the works is a downtown Phoenix block party, similar to the one held along Mill Avenue when Super Bowl XXX came to Tempe in 1996.

Carrying lessons from Miami, Arizona organizers also will draw from last month's Fiesta Bowl and BCS National Championship Game, both held at the Glendale stadium.

Glenn Dickey - San Francisco 49ers Head Coach Bill Walsh Caused Increase In Hiring Of Black Coaches In NFL

My friend and SF Examiner columnist Glenn Dickey wrote this great column on ex-49ers coach Bill Walsh, which I post here and link to here.

Dickey: Walsh laid groundwork for black coaches

"Bill Walsh was not only a groundbreaking offensive coach with Stanford and then the 49ers, he also was instrumentral in integrating blacks into the coaching ranks. Notably, Denny Green and Ray Rhodes were on his staffs and went on to become head coaches." - Glenn Dickey.

Feb 2, 2007 3:00 AM (5 days ago)

SAN FRANCISCO - Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith will be the first black head coaches to face each other in the Super Bowl because of groundwork laid by Bill Walsh.

From his first year as a head coach — at Stanford in 1977 — Walsh looked for black assistant coaches. Denny Green was on his first staff.

“Denny was one of our first hires,” Walsh said this week. Green later became head coach at Stanford and then one of the first half-dozen black head coaches in the NFL.

When he came to the 49ers, Walsh started an intern program to bring in black assistants. One of them was Ray Rhodes, who also became one of that first group of black head coaches in the NFL.

“You have to start somewhere,” Walsh said. “At that time, NFL teams weren’t even hiring black assistants.”

In 1987, Walsh created the Minority Coaching Fellowship program, which has produced several black college coaches, including Tyrone Willingham, who has coached at Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington.

He also started a yearly conference of black college coaches to discuss their situation among themselves. Lowell Cohn and I were the only writers present at one memorable meeting, when coaches talked frankly among themselves and then listened to a candid message by Dr. Harry Edwards about their specific role and the condition of black society. An organizer of the black athletes’ protest at the 1968 Olympics, Edwards was a sociology professor at the University of California who had been brought to the 49ers by Walsh to counsel players. He is still on the 49ers’ payroll.

Walsh then turned his focus to the NFL, working with Roger Goodell, now the NFL commissioner but then an assistant to Paul Tagliabue, on a program to help black assistants get head-coaching jobs.

“They weren’t even getting interviews,” Walsh said. “I don’t think it was racism so much as just indifference. White coaches and administrators had their own jobs, their own concerns.”

“I’ve worked with Bill almost from the time I came into the league in 1982,” Goodell said when I interviewed him before he became commissioner, “and I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the depth of his knowledge and understanding. He has a way of processing information and formulating a plan quickly.”

That’s exactly what Walsh did with his program to get black assistants into head-coaching jobs.

“They weren’t even getting interviews,” he noted, “So, we set up a video program where these coaches were interviewed and could then send tapes to clubs.”

One black assistant who did get interviewed was Marvin Lewis, but Lewis didn’t interview well because he didn’t know what was expected. So, Walsh set up seminars with other NFL executives to instruct the black assistants on how to interview.

The black assistants were prepared when the Rooney Rule, which mandates the interviewing of at least one minority candidate for head-coaching jobs, was installed in 2002. There were seven black NFL head coaches last season.

It all comes back to Walsh, who has affected so many people with his intelligence and compassion.

“To focus on him as a football coach is really a mistake,” Goodell said, “because it ignores the breadth of the man. He’s been involved in our league in so many ways.”

Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith can attest to that.

Glenn Dickey has been covering Bay Area sports since 1963 and also writes on www.GlennDickey.com. E-mail him at glenndickey@hotmail.com.

Deadspin Runs Photo Calling Super Bowl "Negro Bowl" - Why?

Ok, I'm not comfortable with the tag or the photo, which I knee-jerk found offensive. I just did. What's the point? I just don't get this stuff at all, I really don't.

We're doing just fine, I thought, then Deadspin, which I read and like and who's editor I respect, does this.

Why? Why? Why?

Interesting Statement On Churches and NFL Super Bowl Viewing

I found this very interesting notice over at NFL Media.com:

February 2, 2007
STATEMENT FROM AN NFL SPOKESMAN:
The National Football League has absolutely no objection to churches and others hosting Super Bowl viewing parties as long as they do not charge admission and that the game is shown on a television of the type commonly used at home.

We are simply following copyright law and have done so consistently with regard to hotels, theatres, museums, schools, arenas and other such venues.

This is nothing new. It is a matter of longstanding policy and the law. We have no rules that relate to viewing at home on any type of television.

That's all there was to the statement. More on this later.

Tony Dungy Day Declared In Michigan - AOL

According to AOL's mjd, Michigan politicians have declared their should be a "Tony Dungy Day." Here's the info

Lawmakers want Tony Dungy Day in Michigan
February 5, 2007
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LANSING — State lawmakers on Monday proposed a day honoring Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, who was born and raised in Michigan.
Dungy, whose Colts won the Super Bowl, is from Jackson, where he excelled in football at Parkside High School. He is the first black coach to win a Super Bowl.
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“Because of the strength of his character, as well as his success on the field, Tony Dungy is an inspiration to all of us,” said Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, whose district includes Jackson.

Schauer plans to sponsor a legislative resolution proposing “Tony Dungy Day” along with Democratic Reps. Marty Griffin of Jackson and Mike Simpson of Jackson County’s Liberty Township.

They had not yet determined which day to honor Dungy.

Bauer's Pure Rush Party - AOL's Stephanie Stradley Pays A Visit

Last week's Bauer's Pure Rush Party was a hit, and was covered by none other than America Online's Stephanie Stradley.

Check out her post with a click here.

Thanks Stephanie!

21st Leigh Steinberg Super Bowl Party In Miami - Video

(Leigh Steinberg -- in suit -- with my friend Randy Gordon.)

I had the honor and pleasure of attending Leigh Steinberg's 21st Super Bowl Party in Miami and held at the Westin St. Francis Grand Floridian Yacht which is docked just off Ocean Avenue. This, my fourth of Leigh's parties I've attended, was the best. And this was due to the intimacy provided by the combination of the yacht and the grounds below. As a result, there was a lot of interaction rather than people sticking in their own groups and clicks.

The video -- as a result -- reflects how people did relate to each other there. It was a lot of fun. Stars? Well, I'm not the best at recognizing people, but I did talk a while with with Julian Jenkins of the Tampa Bay Bucaneers, Jack Del Rio, Heach Coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars (not in video) and ESPN's Woody Paige (in the video) and Tony Rially (not in the video as well as Actor Billy Baldwin (Not in the video).

(As a note, Baldwin said that he's lanching an extreme sports tour later in the year.)

Finally, much of the video focuses on Al Samuels and Steve Fleming of NBC's "Sports Action Team" and their segment filmed with Leigh Steinberg, and Bruce Perlmutter, the GM of the Tribeca / ESPN Sports Film Festival.

The 2007 Playboy Super Bowl Party, Miami, At American Airlines Arena - Video

The problem with living life and recording the life you live is that the act causes a delay in uploading the videos. Thus, I'm just getting the videos uploaded and embeded in the appropriate blog posts. Here's an example: last Saturday's Playboy Party at American Airlines Arena.

This was my first Playboy party out of the five Super Bowls I've attended and I'm glad I did because now I can say I've been to one and show you too. For all of the build-up it's really got the same things as other parties I've attended: music and free food and drink -- Super Bowl Party requirements. What other parties don't have is a dress code requirement for women that reads "Lingerie or Less." I'm not kidding. There was a lot of women who did comply with the dress code, as the video will show.

My complaint is there are too many guys, and almost no one dancing. The reason for the dance problem is the way the music is played: they only play part of a song for about 30 seconds, then switch to another tune, so you really can't get into a rhythm that allows you to grove and move.

There were a lot of celebrites, too. Rapper Too Short, ex-Pittsburgh Steelers Running Back Franco Harris (whos' a nice person), Oakland Raiders Wide Receiver Jerry Porter (who seemed a little paranoid that one would recognize him as Jerry Porter), to name some of the people I recognized when my eyes weren't drawn elsewhere. Writing on that, there's a lot of people just standing and looking around, mostly guys in groups. The female count needs to be upped considerably.

Before I get to the video, here's another idea: have a dress code for men calling for pajamas in honor of Hugh Hefner.

Here's the video: