Mondays with Murray . . . on Tuesday night

It was Super Bowl X and it was played in Miami. The late Jim Murray — the late, great Jim Murray — attended media day and came up with . . .

JANUARY 14, 1976, SPORTS
Copyright 1976/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY
 
JIM MURRAY
 
SUPERfluous Buildup

MIAMI — Countdown to Super Sunday, or, Which One's Franco Harris, daddy?
   Twelve hundred reporters and 60,000 rubbernecks hit Miami, complain about room service, sit around their cabanas playing gin, while 80 football players who have already played 40 games and are assured $8,500 apiece just for showing up, line up for the great journalistic overkill that is Super Week. If you're a veteran of all nine of these things, it's possible to plot the inanities in advance:
   Monday, 9 a.m. — Terry Bradshaw is asked for the 500th time to comment on the charge he is a "dumb" quarterback. He will explain carefully that the reason he didn't get a scholarship to LSU was not, as rumored, because they didn't think he could pass freshman English but because they didn't think he could pass the football. Eight hundred leads will go out: "Terry Bradshaw says he is not, either, dumb." The New York Daily News will have a head "'Smart As an Ox' — Bradshaw." What Terry SHOULD say is, "Look, Tarkenton can spell better than me, Joe Namath's a better dancer, and Bob Griese probably knows the names of all the Presidents. But I'm here and they're there. Besides, if football were brain surgery, you wouldn't have so many guys running around who don't sign autographs because they can't."
   Monday, 10 a.m. — New wave of reporters asks Mean Joe Greene if he's really mean. Mean Joe patiently explains he doesn't pull the wings off butterflies, poison birds, or keep rattlesnakes. Also, he helps old ladies across the street, takes his hat off in elevators, but he has this one little quirk — at the sight of a quarterback, he goes bananas. 
   Tuesday, 9 a.m. — Rumor spreads someone saw Tom Landry smile, counteracting rumor Tom Landry has been a victim of rigor mortis for 20 years. Landry announces his team is trained too fine, he wants them to get loose. Gives them the recipe for fudge and announces that the curfew will be set clear back to 10 o'clock for this one night, and the drinks — and the straws — are on him.
   Tuesday, 10 a.m. — Reporter asks coach Chuck Noll if, perhaps, having won a Super Bowl, his team is "not hungry enough." Replies Noll: "If you saw the hotel meat bill, you wouldn't say that."
   Wednesday, noon — Four hundred reporters interview Preston Pearson for two hours under the impression he is Drew Pearson. They discover their mistake when they ask him what he did on that last-minute "Hail Mary" pass Staubach threw up on the goal line and Pearson, Preston, says "I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, sank to my knees and said, 'Don't let him drop it!'"
   Thursday, 9 a.m. — Reporters ask Roger Staubach how it feels to be the only midshipman in the history of the Naval Academy to make it big, and Roger says, "Fine. Except I feel sorry that Admirals Dewey, Halsey, Nimitz, Spruance and Rickover were such failures. If the Battle of Midway wasn't a Super Bowl, this sure ain't."
   Thursday, noon — Ernie Holmes says there's no truth whatsoever to the rumor he keeps a pet bull to wrestle with in the off-season. Actually, it's an ox.
   Friday, 9 a.m. — Art Rooney Sr. is asked for the 1,000th time how he won the Steelers in a crap game or at a racetrack or a lottery or a card game. Rooney patiently explains he won the money at a racetrack, but buying the club was his own idea. He is asked to comment on fellow Catholic Roger Staubach's "Hail Mary" pass to the Super Bowl. "Prayer is a good idea at any time," he says.
   Friday, 9 a.m. — At the last breakfast buffet, coach Chuck Noll is asked what he would do if he heard some of his players broke curfew. "I wouldn't be at all surprised," says Noll.
   Saturday, 9 a.m.-Someone asks Tom Landry to explain his "flex defense." From another part of the room comes, "And when you get through with that, run through the infield fly rule, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity."
   Saturday, noon — Commissioner Pete Rozelle, at a news conference, notes that Super Bowl visitors drop an estimated $90 to $100 million in the Super Bowl city during Super Week. "Which group do you guess drops the most?" he is asked. "The Minnesota Vikings," a voice in the rear answers. "They drop $8,500 apiece every year."
   Super Sunday — The day of the big game, at last. The precision of one team is awesome. They run 13 cameras, 100 monitors, 18 rounds of cable, three sound trucks, and a coast-to-coast electronic marvel without a hitch. Compared to them, the two teams on the field are clumsy, drop things, fall down, and fail three-quarters of the time. The team in the truck cannot afford that percentage of error. The team on the field gets $15,000 a man if it is successful. The team in the truck gets $230,000 a minute. The winner of the Super Bowl? The usual. National Airlines, Diners Clubs, Yellow Cab, the Hotel Association, Hertz, Schenley's, caterers, bellhops, concessionaires. Talk about a flex defense! They can make the Cowboys' look like a revolving door.

Reprinted with permission by the Los Angeles Times

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