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And Pete Rozelle Said,'Let There Be Super BowlBy IRA BERKOWNEW YORK — (NEA) — Super Sabbath falls on January 16, Anno Domini 1972. It is the holiest day on the sports calendar. Heathens call it “Super Sunday/’On this day, the nation's yearly Armageddon, known in Sunday School player books as the “Super Bowl,” is played. This year the Dolphins, from the land flowing with salt water and sequins, are pitted against the Cowboys, a band of crusaders from the land of chili and saddle sores.A flock of some 70 million Americans, about one-third of the country, will sit plug-eyed and watch the “Super Bowl clash on television. If the same number had shown up in person for one long ago predecessor, then the David and Goliath match would have had to be moved out of tiny Palestine and played in a larger arena, like the Holy Roman Empire.Super Sabbath is big. It is bigger even than Christmas Day. On Christmas Day, Anno Domini 1971, league playoff games were played despite protestsfrom a fringe group of heretics who ranted thatChristmas should be left to a bearded philanthropist named Saint Nicholas. True believers consider him a hippie.In fact, one fanatic in Minneapolis (a town hear the North Pole, making the guy an obvious homer) burned his tickets to the Vikings-Cowboys game because. he felt, it was sacrilegious for one man tokick a pig hide and-or a man’s hide on December 25.Indeed! Imagine anyone thinking there could be anything more momentous than a football game, and a football game that has a direct bearing on theS----B---. (Only recently have we beengiven imprimatur to write the hallowed name in full, and new things take awhile to get used to.)Super Sabbath is only six years old. surprisingly enough. It has only been with us since the “new” American Football League got some religion and coughed up millions of dollars to merge with the “old” National Football League. Immediately, it received sanction.A church front in Tomah. Wis., for example, welcomed worshipers on the Sunday of Super Bowl I with the exhortation: “Go Go Packers Go Go.” And none less than the high priest of football. Vince Lonbardi, warned his Green Bay players on the eve of the first Super Bowl that. “On Sunday, there will be no brother-in lawing.”It was all up-hill after that. Football has grown in America to be one of the most glorious elements of our society, along with hamburger drive-ins and late-.........night horror movies.President Nixon, for one. has contributed mightily. In Marty Ralbovsky’s valuable book. Super Bowl. he quotes the President in 1969 in a pre-Supcr Bowl conversation with Kansas City quarterback Len Dawson.“The world looks up to pro football players for courage,” said President Nixon.Progress. Only a tew decades ago. we looked up to Mickey Mouse. And once upon a time, we looked up to Job.
Newspaper Details
Doylestown Daily Intelligencer
Doylestown, Pennsylvania, US
Thu, Jan 13, 1972
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 11 Sep 2023
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