The Goat Pen

Jungle Rat wrote:Ok. The next time I walk outside and see my neighbor watching his dog take a dump on my yard im gonna fill the yard with hot dog bites filled.with vicoden and exlax.

Jungle Rat wrote:It's worked before back when I lived in Maineville. Then again in was a Johnsonville Brat, Demerol and barking dogs.

The greatest anthem ever sung. Well, in my opinion it was Whitney Houston's before Super Bowl XXV -- and I say that even though what we heard was recorded a couple of weeks before the game in a Los Angeles sound studio.
Jim Steeg was the NFL's senior vice president of special events and he organized all aspects of the Super Bowl for 26 years. He booked Houston for the Super Bowl, and he was still shaken up by her stunning Saturday death when we spoke Sunday.
"Last night, [wife] Jill and I sat here, totally devastated,'' Steeg said from his San Diego home. "I have Whitney's anthem on my iPod, and last night I just sat here and listened to it. I got chills. I always get chills when I hear it. That was such a special moment in my life.''

Steeg said he'd booked Houston to do the anthem three years earlier (the Redskins-Broncos Super Bowl in San Diego), but she fired her manager in December and took off on a tour of Australia. "So we got Herb Alpert,'' said Steeg.

Funny. I don't remember Herb Alpert's rendition in San Diego, but I'll never forget Houston's in Tampa.

The Gulf War was 10 days old when the Giants and Bills played. And there was major security in place for the first time at a Super Bowl. Fans were patted down before entering the stadium. Sharpshooters and SWAT teams, in plain sight, were in place on the roof of Tampa Stadium. Airspace was cleared. A stray helicopter with a photographer shooting overhead was nearly shot down before the game; the pilot claimed he didn't know anything about the airspace clearance.

"We were prepared for a possible chemical attack,'' said Steeg. "We'd bought up all the antidotes for a chemical attack that we could find, and they were stored under the stadium. After the game, we sold it off to the NBA.''

The league received a credible threat the week before the game: A police car filled with explosives would try to ram into the stadium during the game. "You hear about things like that and you go, 'Yeah, right,' '' said Steeg. "But on Friday, a police car in St. Petersburg was stolen. So that got everyone's attention. We had two Tampa police cars parked at each entrance to the [stadium] property that day. If a St. Pete police car came up, the cars were there to stop it, blocking the gates. So those cops were pretty happy when the game was over.''

Steeg cleared up a few things Sunday. First, the anthem that day was a combined affair, with the Florida Symphony Orchestra backing up Houston. The orchestra recorded the instrumentals that would go behind Houston's rendition. That tape was brought to Los Angeles, and Houston practiced a few times, then recorded the version that would be played in the stadium, the one we've heard so often over the weekend. "That isn't rare,'' he said. "I'd say about 80 percent of the anthems in my time were recorded beforehand.''

The difference with this anthem was that Houston actually sang it on the field before the game -- in front of a dead mike. "I was on the Giants sidelines, standing right behind Lawrence Taylor and Carl Banks,'' said Steeg. "I heard her. It was fabulous.''

Said Steeg: "Lip-syncing is the wrong phrase. She sang it. I heard it. And the emotion on the field when she was finished was noticeable. I saw it on the faces of the Giants. No one knew what the moment would be like, but it was emotion, and fabulous. I'll never forget Taylor saying to Banks -- you think these guys are so intent on the game right then -- but he said, 'Oh my God! Is she good-looking!' ''

Steve Tasker of the Bills was on the opposite sideline. "She hit it out of the park,'' he said. "I'm an anthem enthusiast. I like to listen to them and judge them, and there's never been one like that. I remember looking around when it was over. I looked in the stands and saw fans waving their little American flags with one hand and wiping tears away with the other. I looked over and saw Jim Kelly and Marv [Levy] wiping away tears. And I'm standing right near one of the officials that day, Larry Nemmers -- and he's wiping his eyes. Amazing.''

Lip-syncing or not, it got the crowd going. And the teams. What we heard was a recorded voice and still, after the game, I remember a couple of Giants talking about how special the moment was; players never talk about the anthem. And the next day, radio stations across the country played the anthem so much it shot up into the Billboard Top 10. Houston agreed to give all the proceeds to the American Red Cross; more than $500,000 was raised.
Whatever the method of delivering the anthem, I remember getting teary in the press box when it happened that day. And, like Steeg, I got the chills Saturday night when I YouTubed it.


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/w ... z1mHqioqqL