Friday, January 26, 2001
4 Super Bowl losses and a winning perspective
TAMPA, Fla. - The last sane man at the Super Bowl drives a Harley-Davidson and has 3,000 bottles of wine stored in a cellar at his home. To Super Bowl media day, he brings a book titled “1831, The Year of the Eclipse.” It is, he says, “a treatise on the abolitionist movement.”
Treatise?
Glenn Parker, the 34-year-old guard for the New York Giants, has played in four Super Bowls and lost them all. It has given him a better appreciation for something, even if he's not sure what. After the first one, lost when Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood missed a field goal as time expired, Parker wrapped his arms around the crushed kicker. The photo appeared in papers everywhere.
“I wanted to make sure Scott was OK,” Parker says of the moment. “Being a teammate and friend is more important than whether you win or lose.”
It is?
Excuse me. But this isn't flag football at the beach, buddy. This is the Super Bowl. Six hundred corporate jets, restaurants booked since last summer, beachfront condos going for $3,000 a night.
This is the Big Bowl, chief. Aerosmith is playing at halftime.
“Football is a very minute part of my life,” Parker said. He didn't play in high school: “I didn't like getting hit. I liked going to the beach.” He walked on at a Southern California junior college because he didn't want his parents to have to pay for his education.
“Winning or losing a game does not define me as a person,” Parker said.
What is he, above it all? Parker's sadly mistaken, at least. This is “every player's dream as a little kid,” according to the Giants' Michael Strahan. It's what they work for. It's the reason they play the game.
This is "Super'
It's basically larger than life. It's certainly larger than Glenn Parker, even if he is 6-foot-5, 312. It's quite possibly larger than Tony Siragusa, the Baltimore nose tackle Parker will be blocking, a man Parker described as being “one cheeseburger short of 400” pounds.
The B-52s played at a media party Tuesday night. Do you really think they'd break out “Rock Lobster” for a World Series or an inaugural ball?
Glenn Parker hangs out with hockey players because they're “humble people. In football, guys grow up thinking they're special.” He isn't big on celebrating routine plays: “It's ridiculous. Calm down. If offensive linemen did that, you'd see a lot of fat people jiggling around.”
Away from football
In the offseason, he interns at wineries. If he could, he'd tour the Super scene in his 1970 Plymouth Fury convertible with 300,000 miles on it, but his wife made him sell it when they moved to New Jersey last winter. She said it already was costing a fortune to move all the wine. Besides, she needed the garage space.
What, Glenn, no limo? No VIP room? This is the Super Bowl, my man. Did you get lost on the way to the Little League World Series?
Parker wants to win. At 34, he better get it right this time, because 0-for-5 would be embarrassing. None for the thumb. But if he doesn't, he'll pour himself another glass of perspective, vintage 2001. It will be smooth.
Life goes on, and it is good. And the Super Bowl?
“The Super Bowl,” Parker decided, “is just a game.”
Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at (513) 768-8454.
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DAUGHERTY: 4 Super Bowl losses and a winning perspective