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Superbowl XXV Flashbacks
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: USA Today, The New York Times, St. Petersburg Times
Date: January 22, 2001
Blessings of liberty secured for Super Bowl XXV
By Jill Lieber, USA TODAY
TAMPA, Fla. - The Super Bowl is more than a football game. And never was its magnitude, impact and importance more evident than on Jan. 27, 1991, at Super Bowl XXV, when the United States was embroiled in the Persian Gulf War. On that Sunday, several hundred million people were transfixed on Tampa Stadium, praying that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein wouldn't disrupt America's greatest sporting event. Almost from the moment Operation Desert Storm began 10 days earlier, President George Bush insisted that, for the morale of the country, Super Bowl XXV not be canceled. However, because of everything that was humanly at stake, the question of who would hoist the Lombardi Trophy - the New York Giants or the Buffalo Bills - seemed rather trivial.
The day had less to do with aerial passing attacks, crushing defenses and pregame bacchanalias than it did with Allied forces commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, singer Whitney Houston and patriotic flag-waving.
After Scott Norwood's 47-yard field goal sailed wide right with seconds remaining, which score was more important? Giants 20, Bills 19? No - terrorist acts attempted, 0.
"The Super Bowl is such an important piece of Americana, especially given the circumstances of that time," Schwarzkopf says. " An entire nation was mesmerized by a football game and a war."
As the Super Bowl returns to Tampa for the first time since 1991 - with the Giants and Baltimore Ravens preparing to meet Sunday in Super Bowl XXXV at Raymond James Stadium - those intimately involved in this unique moment in history share details, never before told.
Within days after the Iraqis invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, and the U.S. and Western European NATO allies rushed troops to Saudi Arabia to deter a possible attack, the NFL began planning the most detailed and elaborate anti-terrorism security system instituted at a Super Bowl.
The masterminds? Jim Steeg, the NFL's senior vice president for special events; Bob Smith, then Tampa's director of public safety; and Pete Kranske, COO of Contemporary Services Corp., the Super Bowl's crowd-control specialists since the late 1970s.
Their troops? More than 1,500 people from 23 law enforcement agencies; several hundred CSC security experts; and dozens of sniff dogs.
Their focus? Tampa Stadium.
Four days before kickoff, the stadium was "locked down," combed until it was declared secure. Then the property was put under round-the-clock guard.
Says Kranske: "There was subtle police presence everywhere. It was like entering a military base."
But Super Bowl Sunday was different. There were SWAT teams, bomb squads, dogs and snipers everywhere. All at the ready, from their posts underneath the stadium, their specially built hiding places, sprinkled throughout the stands and across the rooftop.
"Behind every closet door, there were tactical units hiding," says Rick Nafe, then the manager of Tampa Stadium.
Adds Smith, "And if he, or anyone else, had opened those locked closets, without permission, they might have been shot."
When Smith arrived on site at6 a.m. that day, he had put in thousands of planning hours - and said hundreds of silent prayers.
"That morning, at 5:45 a.m., the pastor from my church called to tell me that he was praying for me," Smith says. "I'd promised Commissioner (Paul) Tagliabue the Super Bowl would be safe, but deep down inside, I felt if there were problems, all the fingers would point to me."
To get inside the stadium, which was cordoned off by a chain link fence and cement barricades, everybody had to be frisked and scanned by metal detectors. All vehicles, including the Giants' and Bills' team buses, were hand-searched and checked by sniff dogs. Authorities slid large mirrors underneath for better looks.
The FAA grounded all aircraft, including blimps. Only two helicopters - law enforcement and ABC Sports - hovered overhead. And circling throughout was an ominous Blackhawk helicopter.
"I can't tell you who or what was on board," Smith says, "but I can assure you, if a problem had arisen, it would've been on the ground instantly."
Throughout the day, Smith says, he received several threats, none of which panned out. There was only one tense moment - when 1,500 children took the field for Disney's halftime show. "I said to myself, 'God, help us,' " recalls Smith, who retired in 1995.
This Sunday, Smith will be watching from his home in Bowling Green, Ky. "My wife says I've worked two lifetimes," he says. Most of the security measures he directed 10 years ago are intact.
"A lot of things we still do, a lot we don't," Steeg says. "In 1991, people were worried, so we talked about it. We wanted them to feel safe. Today, though, we don't elaborate, for security reasons."
Disaster planning
Ricardo Martinez was a little unnerved by the threat of chemical warfare, especially nerve gas. "It's organophosphate, better known as roach spray," says Martinez, the Super Bowl's emergency medical consultant since 1989.
The antidote is atropine.
With the help of Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, Martinez tracked down the entire remaining U.S. supply, at a Baltimore company called Survival Tech. He stockpiled the atropine, along with injector pins, underneath the stadium. Then, he trained his emergency medical crew and the NFL's security forces, teaching them to jab the atropine pins into patients' thighs.
On Super Bowl Sunday, six triage sites, with 300-plus hospital beds, were set up throughout the stadium. And Martinez did something he'd never done before and hasn't since - donned a bulletproof vest.
If there had been a nerve-gas disaster that day, less than 10,000 of the 73,000-plus fans could have been saved. Martinez figured God would draw up that roster.
"In a disaster, you save the most salvageable," Martinez says.
In the end, it turned out to be a routine Super Bowl.
"We had our first cardiac arrest during the national anthem," says Martinez, who saw 200 patients, the norm. "He was revived before he got into the ambulance.
"Looking back, it was the most exhausting game I've ever been to. From the opening kickoff, I just wanted it to be over."
That experience inspired Martinez, who now is involved in all the initial Super Bowl planning and works closely with Jerry Anderson, the game's architectural consultant. For example, the two determine the locations for extra lighting and signage that aid the safety of a crowd unlikely to be familiar with the stadium where the Super Bowl is being held.
"That game changed everything," Martinez says. "Super Bowls are safer because of it."
Oh, say, did she sing
Whitney Houston knew instantly how she wanted to interpret ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' at Super Bowl XXV - with jazz chords and soulful gospel rhythms.
So, Rickey Minor, her longtime musical director, suggested taking the song out of standard, waltz tempo - three quarters time - and add an extra beat per measure, which would allow Houston to open up her lungs and "breathe."
Who would have known she would take everybody else's breath away in the process?
"She moved me to tears," says Steve Tasker, then the Bills' special-teams star. "And there wasn't a dry eye in the house."
Says Steeg: "The country wanted something to bring us together, at one time. Her anthem was that moment. It galvanized America."
Two weeks before the Super Bowl, Houston heard the arrangement, played by the Florida Orchestra, for the first time. And two takes later, she recorded a breathtaking game-day master. "She truly embraced the song," Minor says.
But not everybody agreed. Some NFL officials feared the rendition was too flamboyant for wartime.
"They thought the harmonies were too different, that it was sacrilegious," Minor says.
Adds Bob Best, the Super Bowl's pregame show producer since the early 1980s: "Their hang-up was that it wasn't easy to sing to. I disagreed wholeheartedly."
Four days before the game, NFL officials ordered Best to phone Houston's father, John, and ask if she would record another version. The answer was no.
"I held that phone so far away from my ear," Best recalls.
Yet, when Houston stepped onto the field, Minor, the musical director, was filled with anxiety. "I thought, 'What if everybody boos?'"
Two weeks later, the single was No. 1 on the Billboard charts. [The single peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, a record for the national anthem, and was certified Platinum.]
This Sunday, Minor's back for the first time since 1991, as the genius behind the Backstreet Boys. But how can he possibly top himself?
"Everybody's expecting a 'boys group,' something overly hip," he says. "But this anthem is straight down the middle."
The general's perspective
Hunkered down in his command post in the Persian Gulf, Schwarzkopf was fully aware of Super Bowl XXV, but he couldn't watch it live because there were no broadcasts into Saudi Arabia.
Ten days later, a videotape arrived, and when he saw Houston's anthem, he wept.
"I was touched very, very deeply," he says.
From time to time on that Sunday, however, his thoughts drifted back to Tampa. Based out of MacDill, his family made its home there and his son Christian was a big Giants fan.
"Knowing a year ahead, the Super Bowl would be in Tampa, my family and I were excited that maybe we'd get a chance to go," Schwarzkopf says. "Of course, that was pre-empted by something more important."
This Sunday, he'll finally get his chance. Schwarzkopf will be honored in a pregame tribute to the Persian Gulf servicemen and servicewomen. His wife, Brenda, and daughter Jessica will be there, too.
You can bet that once again, just as he did in 1991, he'll catch himself during the game, drifting back, to the Persian Gulf. Don't be surprised if he raises a toast, just as he did at 5 p.m. Tuesday at his Colorado home - 3 a.m. in Saudi Arabia - to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the start of the war.
"I think about my troops and their families all of the time," he says, choking back tears.
Who's Schwarzkopf rooting for? All he'll say is this: "It's kinda neat that ththe Giants are in the Super Bowl 10 years later, don't you think? It's déjà vu."
Sports of The Times; When Two Super Voices Inspired Giants
By DAVE ANDERSON
OF the current Giants, only Howard Cross, their 33-year-old tight end, has a Super Bowl XXV ring. But when he was asked what he remembered about that 20-19 victory over the Buffalo Bills in Tampa, he shook his head.
"Not much," he said. "I'm not a nostalgic person."
He was reminded that he caught 4 passes for 39 yards and three important first downs.
"I really don't remember any of that," he insisted.
But as he awaited Super Bowl XXXV against the Baltimore Ravens next Sunday in Tampa, did he remember Whitney Houston singing the national anthem there 10 years ago?
"Oh, yeah," he said. "I remember that."
So does everybody else who heard her sing the national anthem that Sunday the way nobody else ever has. Actually, as her voice boomed through the loudspeakers, she wasn't singing it so much as she was belting it out as if she were on a concert stage or in a recording studio.
"She had a great voice," Cross said.
Super Bowl XXV, you may remember, occurred shortly after the Gulf War began. United States jets were bombing Iraq. Scud missiles were buzzing over the desert at American troops. With security advisers wondering if terrorists would target the Super Bowl, ticket-holders had to pass through metal detectors and SWAT teams roamed the roof.
So when Whitney Houston belted out the national anthem with the nation at war, she reminded everybody that there was a much more important world out there beyond the Super Bowl, a much more important world beyond even the Giants' hold-your-breath triumph when Bills kicker Scott Norwood's 47-yard field goal try sailed wide right.
As much as Giants followers remember how Jeff Hostetler was the first backup quarterback to win a Super Bowl, how Matt Bahr's 21-yard field goal made the difference, how Ottis Anderson rushed for 102 yards as the Giants controlled the ball for more than 40 minutes, they also remember Whitney Houston's national anthem.
If her rendition inspired the Giants, maybe it also inspired the Bills as both teams combined to produce one of the most competitive games in Super Bowl history.
Four years earlier, when the Giants won Super Bowl XXI for their first National Football League championship since 1956, another familiar voice inspired them.
At halftime, the Giants were trailing, 10-9, before 101,063 fans in the Rose Bowl. As the Denver Broncos hurried to their locker room that golden afternoon in Pasadena, Calif., they were serenaded on the loudspeakers by John Denver's recording of "Rocky Mountain High."
But as the Giants emerged for the second half, Frank Sinatra's recording of "New York, New York" was booming over the loudspeakers. Hearing it, Phil McConkey, the Giants' wide receiver and punt returner, was waving a big white towel as he sprinted toward the Giants' bench.
"I flew down the sideline, whirling my arms, waving my towel," McConkey has often said. "Between me and Sinatra, we got the crowd roaring."
And when all those Giants followers heard Sinatra's voice blaring, "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere," they knew the Giants had made it in New York decades earlier, but the Giants had yet to win a Super Bowl so now the Giants had to make it in the Super Bowl.
In the second half, they did.
Phil Simms, who completed 22 of 25 passes for 268 yards, found tight end Mark Bavaro for a quick 13-yard touchdown and a 16-10 lead -- the first of 24 unanswered points that generated a 39-20 triumph.
Simms had thrown a 6-yard dart to tight end Zeke Mowatt for a touchdown in the first quarter and he flipped a 5-yard touchdown in the final quarter to McConkey, the towel-waver at halftime.
"But that halftime scene wouldn't have been the same," McConkey has said, "without Sinatra singing, 'New York, New York.'"
For all the winning football that the Giants played for Coach Bill Parcells in their two previous Super Bowl games, the uncommon denominator is an unforgettable voice booming over the loudspeakers -- Frank Sinatra just before the second-half kickoff in Pasadena and Whitney Houston with the national anthem in Tampa.
And if you're looking for a Giants omen at Sunday's game, Ray Charles will be singing "America the Beautiful." As only he can.
TAMPA - For neck-tingling dramatics, in football and beyond, from all the Roman-numeraled Super Bowls, the highest impact came from XXV.
My No. 1, from the heart.
American kids were at Desert Storm war in January 1991. Tampa Stadium under terrorism alert. Entry would be slow but patient for 73,318 patrons, snaking through metal detectors.
Unforgettable . . .
Whitney Houston delivered a patriotically chilling Star-Spangled Banner. Tens of thousands of little American flags waved in impassioned Super Bowl fists. Military aircraft buzzed. My eyes moistened. Backbone shivered.
You'd wondered if this country could ever again so beautifully bond, with World War II-style togetherness, but during the evening of XXV souls across the republic seemed to melt into a national embrace.
When it came time for the Giants and Bills to play, for pure exhilarating sport it too was memorable. Running back Ottis Anderson had a career night, the MVP of New York ball-control perfection that chewed 401/2 minutes, but the moment of triumph was not assured until the dying seconds when Buffalo's kicker, poor Scott Norwood, went wide with a 47-yard field goal.
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