Now for some serious Gonzaga B’ball watching

Editorial Gary MugMost years I could care less who wins the Super Bowl, except for the camaraderie and snacks at a Super Bowl Party. I make an exception when it is the Seahawks, being a fan, albeit fair weather, of professional teams from our fair state.

However, I don’t watch a lot of pro-sports anything anymore – I kind of gave up when the Sonics left town. And other than watching a whole lot of Mariners Baseball with my late father after he retired, I pretty much keep my sports viewing to Gonzaga basketball. Both on television, and thanks to a greatly appreciated pair of tickets from Jim Prince each year, in person.

Since I’m a fair weather Seahawks (Mariners – Sounders, I guess) fan I was especially happy that this year Seattle had finally made it back to the Super Bowl. Now I just need to find a pennant to match my vintage 78-79 Sonics NBA Champion one. And to my ex-pat friends living in Oregon who say just substitute the Blazers for the Sonics, I always answer, “You must be joking, right?”

I’m especially happy the ‘Hawks beat Denver so handily – it was getting tiring hearing all those “I’m going with the Broncos” comments from national (non-sports) network news commentators. Now it’s all sour grapes about how it was a boring game. I thought it was pretty exciting, although the second half might not have been quite the thrill of the first, especially the first few seconds of the game. What was boring were the television commercials; with only a few exceptions I don’t think most of the advertisers got their $4 million worth. If you’re not in it for the football, or the hometown team isn’t playing, us fair weather, in it for the party Super Bowl watchers, are at least supposed to get to enjoy some new, thought provoking, hilarious, product selling, commercials. This year it was just a good thing Seattle was playing and won. Other than the Coke commercial which was beautifully done, thought provoking was limited to “isn’t that cute.”

To the “America” should only be sung in English grouches, you know who you are, get a grip. There is no official U.S. language and celebrating our great country in any language has to be a good thing, right? Isn’t it too bad that while that commercial was going on many of us were thinking in the back of our minds, this is going to upset some people? Anyway, my favorite was the Doberwawa – that probably upset those guys too – you know hybrids and all.

It was a pretty good halftime show, that is when I wasn’t channel surfing during the mid-game break. The Seahawks did a great job and should be treated like local royalty for awhile. They’re a fun team to watch and not one of those “best team money can buy to win a championship” teams. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a dynasty and it doesn’t take another decade or so before I can get really excited about another Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl’s over, now I can get back to some serious Gonzaga basketball watching. I’m just glad the Bulldog’s opponents aren’t Doberwawas.