2001: Nippy News Release Articles

Wide Right and Whitney Houston
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: Chicago Tribune
Date: January 28, 2001

That's all many people can recall of the 1991 super bowl, played only 10 days after the start of the persian Gulf War

When The Big Game Seemed Small

By Melissa Isaacson, Tribune Staff Writer

TAMPA -- Maybe Howard Cross was ready for the question.

Maybe the only member of this year's team to have been in a New York Giants uniform for Super Bowl XXV had his recollections so finely crystallized because he has had 10 years to think about it.

Or maybe the veteran tight end simply remembered the entire experience as the rest of us do.

"Wide right and Whitney Houston," Cross said.

That about sums it up for any of the 73,000-plus people who were in Tampa that day, or the 112 million Americans who watched on television.

Wide right was the location of Buffalo kicker Scott Norwood's 47-yard field goal attempt with four seconds left, preserving New York's 20-19 victory over the Bills.

It was but the culmination of a day, however, that made even a last-second play in a Super Bowl seem small by comparison.

"I told my players beforehand," said Buffalo coach Marv Levy, "'When you first played this game, one reason you did it was for fun. What can be more fun than playing in the Super Bowl?' I thought they'd go in less uptight. And I thought they did go in concentrating on what they had to do.

"Yet there was definitely the feeling that something else was permeating everything."

That feeling had permeated the entire week, a seven-day period normally directed toward one football game instead dominated by attention to the Persian Gulf war and Operation Desert Storm, which had begun just 10 days earlier.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue had considered the possibility that the Super Bowl not be played that year in deference to the events in the Middle East and as a safety measure against the very real possibility of a terrorist attack.

President George Bush disagreed. "It was a question of what was appropriate," said Jim Steeg, the NFL's senior vice president for special events. "The Super Bowl, they say, is a celebration and you're worried. We didn't know how bad the war [might] be, and we didn't want to be back here celebrating when there were people over there dying."

Of course, canceling the Super Bowl would not just send a message to the American people that they were in serious danger, but also that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had succeeded in intimidating us.

"That's exactly what the president was saying," said Steeg, "that life goes on."

In and around Tampa Stadium, which had been sealed off two weeks before the game, elaborate security measures were being taken, including the erection of a concrete barrier and 6-foot chain-link fence surrounding the entire structure.

Everyone entering the stadium on game day had to pass through metal detectors, spectators were prohibited from bringing any of the usual game-day necessities such as TVs, radios, cameras or coolers.

Vendors and players alike were searched for identification, as was every delivery truck. The ABC broadcast team was briefed by FBI and local police officials over what to do in the event they were taken hostage during the game. And Tagliabue arrived at the game wearing a flak jacket.

"I was aware of the added security, people were worried that if a bomb were planted, it would kill a large number of people, but we didn't walk around in total apprehension and fear," Levy said. "Of course, it was not foremost in our minds."

It would be close. Super Bowl week turned players into political analysts and ambassadors.

"The war really put things into perspective all week," said Steve Tasker, then a standout on the Bills' special teams and now a CBS analyst.

"You could get carried away with every other Super Bowl," said Steve Tasker, then a standout on the Bills' special teams and now a CBS analyst. "But this one had a subdued nature. You had to preface everything by saying, 'It's not the most important thing in the world obviously because of the war.'"

"It was pretty weird," said Cross, "with guys walking around with M-16s and all, but that was part of it because they were taking care of us."

Game time was approaching. But ask anybody who saw Super Bowl XXV, and they remember it as much for the pregame as the game itself.

"Both teams wore red, white and blue," said Tasker, "and I remember us all standing there and they had F-16s do fly-bys and an Apache gunship that followed the jets very, very low. You could see they were all armed and ready, and you knew these were the same kind of planes they were using in the Gulf. I still get moved when I think about it."

But amid all the tumult, activities were about to cease. Spectators, players, coaches, officials, medical personnel, security officials all stopped as Whitney Houston stepped to the microphone.

Houston had recorded a version of the national anthem different enough from the standard rendition that it had NFL officials buzzing about whether or not it was appropriate.

As it turns out, it could not have been more appropriate.

"Every game has a rendition of the national anthem," said Levy, "but I don't think any has ever made the same impression on me because it was so wonderfully done by Whitney Houston."

"I was moved to tears," Tasker said.

In the stands, fans--most waving American flags--were expecting the usual offensive show by the Bills, whose no-huddle offense had scored 51 points in the AFC championship game.

But coach Bill Parcells' underdog Giants, quarterbacked by virtual unknown Jeff Hostetler, starting his fifth game for an injured Phil Simms, found a way to neutralize Buffalo's attack with a methodical, run-oriented game that ate up 40:33 of game clock.

"It was arguably the best Super Bowl ever played," said James Lofton, then a Bills receiver and now a CBS radio analyst.

With the Giants leading 20-19 following a Matt Bahr field goal and 2:16 remaining, the Bills had the ball on their own 10-yard line. After they drove to the Giants' 29 with eight seconds remaining, Norwood trotted onto the field as the Giants called a timeout.

"I was holding hands with Marv Levy on the sidelines, and I'm not sure how that happened because in my entire career, I never stood next to the head coach on the sidelines," Lofton said.

"It was late in the evening, it was on grass, there was dew in the air and it was right outside of Scott's range. One thing I remember thinking as he got ready to kick it is, 'Just don't shank it.' And he didn't. He hit it well.

"Most field goals drift right to left. He aimed it straight at the goal posts and he hit it so well, I couldn't tell it was no good until the official signaled. I remember the Giants leaning right to make it stay outside, and that's where it stayed, a yard outside."

The television cameras would keep going back to Norwood, who has given only a handful of interviews in recent years. "When it missed, my whole body was kind of deadened by it," he told "NFL Insider.""I just felt so empty out there."

Buffalo guard Glenn Parker, now with the Giants, was the first to reach Norwood.

"I gave him a pat on the butt and said, 'Don't worry about it. We'll get the next one,'" Parker recalled. "He had a great career, but the memory of what he did probably [messed him up]. ... I think about him all the time. Scott was a great person."

One by one in the locker room afterward, players approached Norwood to accept responsibility for the loss.

"Scotty was quiet, reserved, almost introverted, but well-liked by his teammates," Levy said. "Five or six players came over and said, 'Hey, if I would've made that tackle on third down ...' or, 'If I would've made that catch.'

"I told him, 'Forget it, let's go back to work,' and he came back several years after that and won several games for us on last-second kicks."

Still, teammates worried about Norwood, who has skipped alumni functions in Buffalo over the last several years. "I don't think it ruined his life, but it certainly changed it," Tasker said. "There are still idiots on the radio in Buffalo who blame him, and I think he feels badly about coming back. The loss was so much identified with him, it was like the Bill Buckner syndrome."

Of course, Super Bowl XXV was bigger than Scott Norwood, bigger than the Giants. Cross said the only mistake is to assume '91 was any different than any other year.

"I'll tell you, we don't save any lives, we don't build any bridges, we don't find any cures for any terminal diseases," Cross said. "All we do is play football. Every day there's something bigger going on than what we're doing."