Inglewood, Calif. — They came pounding up the tunnel, and it sounded like a cavalry scene in a Hollywood movie. Thump. Thump. Thump. And the whooping hollering reverberated inside the tunnel walls.
And suddenly, there seemed to be a stampede. Broncos on the warpath.
Fifty-six now, and this was my weirdest Super Bowl moment. It might have terminated my Super Bowl streak at 49.
And I could have taken Peyton Manning down and out with me.
It is a story that I’ve never revealed to a soul. Until now.
This was at Super Bowl 50 in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara down from San Francisco. Six years ago, while Matthew Stafford still was languishing with the Lions, Manning was quarterback for the Broncos toward the end of his career.
The NFL opted to take all the survivors who had been at the half-century worth of Super Bowls — packed together, the fans and the two newspaper journalists — for a group photograph on the field. It was just before the opening kickoff and Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star-Ledger and I were in the midst of working but were marched down from the press box.
First, the heavy footsteps and then, suddenly, out of the dark came the Broncos. Peyton was about to run into me — at full gallop — run me over, full of zeal, when he veered off to the right. Then the whole troop of Broncos galloped by to the field, where they defeated the Panthers.
The NFL got the photo taken and the mob of ancient travelers got to our seats.
Fifty-six of these Super Bowls for me now. There are precious memories that were captured through the years.
Vince Lombardi. Joe Namath. Joe Montana. John Riggins. Terry Bradshaw, Jack Lambert. Matt Millen. Jim and John Harbaugh, dueling brothers. Marcus Allen.
John Stallworth. Lynn Swann. John Madden. George Allen. Don Shula. And now Matthew Stafford and his accomplices, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald.
Some of those memories:
Lombardi did not care much for the press. And I don’t think he cared for the merger between the NFL and the upstart American Football League rival. He had the nervous shakes before the game. He admitted later that his Packers were lugging the prestige of the established NFL in Super Bowl I.
The NFL boasted its superiority with an overdose of swagger but who could be sure.
In the game, they used different footballs, the NFL and AFL versions.
After the Packers had dominated the Chiefs, 35-10, Lombardi was flipping a football up and catching it.
“That an NFL ball,” I asked Lombardi, who was discussing the game with a half dozen other sports journalists.
He declined to answer as he tossed the ball up and he caught it and flipped it again. I asked a second time, then a third.
“This is an NFL ball,” Lombardi said through his gapped teeth.
“And it kicks a little bit better, it throws a little bit better, and it catches a little bit better.
“I don’t think Kansas City compares with the best teams in the NFL, Dallas is a better team.
“There dammit, you made me say it. Now I’ve said it.”
That rates tops as my favorite interview in all the 56 Super Bowls.
Of course, pro football’s explosive growth caused the autocratic manner in which the NFL controlled the media by the 1970s, after the two leagues became one.
The league resorted to organized press conferences and group meetings by Super Bowl III.
Pete Rozelle, the NFL commissioner, had taken command of the AFL team’s Super Bowl commitments. He fined Joe Namath for skipping what would become the annual press day.
The next day, Namath skipped the mandatory press interviews at the Jets’ team hotel, the Galt Ocean Mile in Fort Lauderdale. A large group of writers had been eagerly awaiting Namath’s appearance.
That entire season, there had been a swelling mystique about Namath. Stories emanated from New York about his playing skills, his braggadocio — and his nocturnal escapes.
Against his fame, the Baltimore Colts were 18-point favorites.
There was simmering anger in the hotel ballroom when I peered out the windows and saw Namath walking toward the swimming pool. He was dressed for sunning himself, not a meeting with the journalists.
Minutes later a writer friend, Si Burick from Dayton, approached me with a proposition,
“Namath’s agreed to talk to a few of us at the pool,” Si said. “Are you interested?”
‘Are you (bleeping) me?”
A small gathering assembled pool side amid the gawkers and celebrity addicts.
“Somebody wrote I was fined for drinking J&B Scotch,” Namath told us. “Hell, I don’t even drink J&B, unless they run out of Johnnie Walker Red.”
Two nights later, the hometown Miami Herald scooped us all at the paper’s Gridiron Club banquet. Namath was the honoree.
“We’re gonna win Sunday,” he said. “I guarantee you.”
And on Sunday, Namath and the AFL Jets delivered: Jets 16, Colts 7, the biggest — and most important — upset in 56 Super Bowls.
There have been a multitude of characters in 56 Super Bowl adventures.
There was John Riggins, running back for the Washington team at Super Bowl XVII.
John was another anti-press performer. He had been silent to the media for 18 months. He promised one press conference before the Super Bowl against the Dolphins.
In a jammed room, some reporter asked, “John to what do you owe your longevity?”
“Formaldehyde,” responded Riggins with an enormous grin.
In the game, he made one of the most scintillating Super Bowl runs from scrimmage, 43 yards, spinning and twisting to enable Washington to win, 27-17.
He showed up for the postgame-press conference, another break in his silence vow. He came dressed in a gray workman’s shirt and camouflage hunting pants with large pockets. He wore a cap inscribed, “Ducks Unlimited.”
A few minutes earlier, President Reagan had telephoned the victorious locker room and conversed with Riggins. Reagan mentioned the similarity of their names.
“Ron’s the President,” said Riggins to the writing mass in the room, “but I’m the king.”
It has been a great joy for me these past 56 years covering the Super Bowls for The News and writing about the participants and the games.
I’m the only writer left who has done all 56 and my longevity is not due to formaldehyde.
Consider, a stack of 56 pancakes or 56 french fries would be considered gluttony. That, I guess, describes my motivation to keep going.
I no longer can my own nocturnal celebrating as we used to gather to do in New Orleans or Miami or even New York. And I suppose even the two Super Bowls I covered the event in Detroit — remember Bourbon Street North in Pontiac.
I never wanted to be the story. And if you’ve reached this point, it’s what I’ve just done.
All I know is, the last Super Bowl play I’ve seen is Matthew Stafford taking a knee in the Rams’ 23-20 victory over the Bengals on Sunday.
A moment I had thought I’d never see.
Next year for me Super Bowl LVII in Phoenix:
?!
Retired Detroit News sportswriter Jerry Green, now 93, is the last remaining newspaper journalist who has covered every Super Bowl.