Big game gets a bit weird(er) in Miami
There’s a reason that whenever you hear about something you know has never happened before and couldn’t possibly happen again, you assume there’s a Florida connection.
A woman finds a rusty plate on the beach, takes it home, learns it’s a landmine. A man combing another beach plucks an object from the sand with bare hands, learns it too is a landmine. Two true events, unrelated, except for the fact they both happened in – could there be any doubt? – Florida.
And now, things are about to get weird.
Hitting town is Super Bowl LIV, the weeklong event that screams excess, brought to you by the league that defines excess, to the region that LIVs excess.
Oh, and on Sunday, Feb. 2, what’s left of South Florida is scheduled to host a football game at Hard Rock Stadium.
This is the extravaganza South Florida has waited 10 years for, one Dolphins owner Stephen Ross dished out more than half a billion dollars for: to show the world that when it comes to staging Super Bowls, nobody does it like the city that has played host more than any other. And nobody would dare try. How will this edition play out? You’ll have a solid week of prognostications that will make you beg for the 6:38 ET kickoff, but none as much a lock as this: Buckle up. It’s going to get wild.
There have been 53 Super Bowls staged, but only a Miami halftime gave the world an Elvis impersonator who (true story) was impersonating an Elvis impersonator.
Only Miami gave us a player receiving an honor for character and leadership the very day he was busted for soliciting a hooker.
Miami is where Hollywood Henderson snorted cocaine on the sideline.
Miami is where a hobo named Sidedoor showed up to help interview 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo.
Miami had a blimp crashing the game and some bald guy crashing the Steelers’ locker room. The blimp was part of the filming for “Black Sunday.” There can be no explanation for the bald guy who managed to shower with the Steelers.
Nowhere else produced a quote to compare with, “I just came out of ‘Mississippi Burning’ and came to see Miami burning.” The speaker was Bengals cornerback and moviegoer Solomon Wilcots, amid riots in Overtown in 1989 after an Hispanic officer fatally shot a fleeing black motorcyclist.
To start adding up all of this is to wonder how Barret Robbins’ infamous disappearance could have occurred anywhere but Miami, how Thurman Thomas’ helmet didn’t disappear in the Orange Bowl or how Miami can’t claim to be the birthplace of the term “wardrobe malfunction.”
When the Bears arrived in 2007 for their Super Bowl against the Colts, return ace Devin Hester warned teammates to forget about the neon lights of South Beach. Curfew was at midnight most of the week, he said. Long after players were supposed to be in bed, Ocean Drive would be waking up.
At least theoretically, Hester had a point. But three years later, when Reggie Bush arrived with the Saints, the glitz quotient kicked up a few notches.
Bush’s girlfriend was Kim Kardashian. TMZ couldn’t resist posting a photo of them leaving a club “at 3:30 a.m.” The joint’s name was too good to be true: Club Bed.
Bush said the photo actually was taken earlier, entering the club. But the 3:30 angle flew because anything is believable when you combine football and two SBs – Super Bowl and South Beach.
Stevie Wonder tap-danced here, you understand. So did Atlanta safety Eugene Robinson, in a manner of speaking. He was given the Bart Starr Award that weekend for character and leadership, then arrested and charged with soliciting an undercover Miami officer for $40.
The story gets better (remember, this is Miami). Falcons players admitted 1) They were more focused on Robinson than the Broncos; and 2) Robinson wasn’t the only one visiting the seedy area of Miami. He was the only one who got caught.
The riots weren’t all that happened in ’89. Bengals running back Stanley Wilson was found in a cocaine stupor in his hotel bathroom the night before the game.
In ’79, Henderson was so hooked on cocaine he stashed a nasal vaporizer in his uniform pants. Not to get high, he later said, but to mask the pain from sores in his nose caused by drug abuse.
Enough legalese. If wacky is more your thing, Miami has you covered. The second half of that ’79 game was delayed eight minutes after a “Salute to the Caribbean” float was snagged on a goalpost coming off the field.
By ’89, the NFL knew it had to do better than bad floats and Pat Boone clones at halftime. Commissioner Pete Rozelle was intrigued when a book landed on his desk entitled “Super Bowl XXII / Sorcery Spectacular.” Rozelle couldn’t open the book because the sender had drilled a hole clear through the pages and inserted a lock. If Rozelle wanted the key, he had to meet with the guy making the wild pitch.
Thus explains a show entitled “BeBop Bam Boozled with Elvis Presto.” An Elvis impersonator was supposed to do a magic trick involving the entire crowd, except the guy quit at the last minute when a jeans manufacturer offered a spot in a commercial. All shook up? Nah. In stepped Alex Cole, and about all you need to know about how things went is that 1) Today Cole runs a yoga studio in Oregon and 2) He never was on a stage again.
Or at least he hasn’t been on stage since.
With the circus rolling back into Miami, maybe Elvis is re-entering the building.