Columnist Dean Juipe: Anecdotes reflect great game

Dean Juipe

Monday, Jan. 31, 2000 | 9:57 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@vegas.com or 259-4084.

Matching the most pleasing Super Bowl of all time with an assortment of proverbs, sayings and witticisms:

"Every mission is a joke until the first man accomplishes it." -- Aeronautics pioneer Robert Goddard, who demonstrated the practicality of space exploration with the first liquid fuel rocket, which traveled 184 feet in 1926.

The chance that St. Louis quarterback Kurt Warner would parlay his Arena Football League and NFL Europe experience into an MVP season and lead the Rams to a 23-16 Super Bowl victory over the Tennessee Titans as he did on Sunday seemed as unlikely prior to the season as flying a man to the moon must have in '26. "It's unbelievable. We feel so blessed by God," said his wife, Brenda, as Kurt was adding record Super Bowl passing numbers (414 yards!) to his already remarkable season.

"I'm having too much fun to worry about the consequences." -- Homer Simpson, animated TV star.

Homer was never more animated than Rams owner Georgia Frontiere, who paraded along the sidelines during the game in all her look-at-me glory.

"The clothesline still stands, but the owner is long gone." -- Irish singer Christy Moore.

That's the clothesline outside the Astrodome, where the Oilers -- er, Titans -- played until owner Bud Adams looked at the benefits of a new stadium and its luxury suites and moved his team to Tennessee in 1996.

"All men are equal when their memory fades." -- Singer Lemmy (Motorhead) Kilmister.

Lemmy may have had referee Bob McElwee in mind, given that McElwee's uniform number -- 95 -- appears to be the same as his age and that he called the game accordingly, suffering several mental lapses including mistakenly signalling and announcing that the St. Louis defense was guilty of delay of game after one first-quarter play. McElwee's helpers came to his aid and marched the penalty off in the proper direction in spite of their leader's meltdown.

"I went into the wilderness and fought the animals there, and when I came back I was blind." -- Former boxer Sugar Ray Seales, an Olympic gold medalist in 1972 who later went blind due to the effects of taking 400 amateur and professional fights.

Titans safety Blaine Bishop could relate after a debilitating neck injury in the third quarter that not only brought the game to a lengthy halt but brought a team of medical personnel out on to the field to treat him and, later, haul him away.

"If you're all in the same boat, it doesn't make any sense to bore a hole in the other guy's side no matter how much you dislike him." -- Unknown.

When the Titans were down 16-0 the cameras caught backup quarterback Neil O'Donnell pensively eyeing the lack of action and, presumably, wishing he could take a turn in relief of Steve McNair. But O'Donnell stayed mum and McNair eventually snapped the Tennessee offense to life with a 16-point rally that temporarily tied the game.

"The dogs bark and the caravan passes by." -- Arab proverb.

For all the hoopla about TV commercials going for $2.2 million per 30 seconds, few of them seemed to have any lasting impact. One by E-trade, where two disinterested guys clap along with some music as a monkey does a jig, offered a surprisingly succinct summation when words on the screen at the end of the commercial admitted "Well, we've just wasted $2 million."

"You are not obligated to respond to a jackass just because it brays." -- Dear Abby.

That's what Tennessee cornerback Denard Walker could have been thinking to himself as Rams receiver Torry Holt told him "You can't cover me" after a second-quarter interference penalty. Two plays later Holt dropped a sure touchdown pass in the end zone that would have given St. Louis a 10-0 lead at the time.

The Chinese symbol for opportunity is the same as the symbol for danger.

Opportunity for either team's place kickers to shine was obvious all afternoon, yet neither St. Louis' Jeff Wilkins nor the Titans' Al Del Greco turned in all-star performances. Wilkins missed from 34 yards and had another early field goal try go by the boards when his holder, Mike Horan, mishandled the ball, while Del Greco missed one from 47 and had another from 38 blocked.

Res ipsa loquitur. -- Latin; translated: "The thing speaks for itself."

Seeing Frontiere, Warner and St. Louis head coach Dick Vermeil (9-23 his first two seasons with the team) sharing a grip on the league's championship trophy after the Rams completed the most spectacular one-season turnaround in sports history.