The Countdown to Kickoff Book Tour for Making The Big Game covered six states in just over two weeks in January and February 2010. Below is my journal and images from a whirlwind excursion through numerous retail and media appearances in multiple cities including the most seasoned Big Game host city of all - Miami, Florida. Exactly two years after my Super Bowl ticket hunt that inspired the book, the book tour closely followed the run up to Super Bowl XLIV. In many respects, the tour retraces themes, chapters and settings chronicled in Making The Big Game: Tales of an Accidental Spectator.
THE COUNTDOWN TO KICKOFF... CHAPTERS REVISITED January 22 - Middletown, NY Marking The Spot/Family Meeting/Phoenix Rising January 23 - Fort Lee, NJ Living Up To The Billing January 24 - Philadelphia, PA A Home Game is Never Far Away/Super Saturday January 26 - Coral Gables, FL Nobody is Perfect January 30 - Merced, CA True Giants and Patriots January 30 - Sacramento, CA Trick Plays February 6 - Carson City, NV Footloose February 7 - Crystal Bay, NV Festival in the Desert
Opening Credits
Borders Books has been a key retail partner for showcasing Making The Big Game hosting signing events or carrying the title in Sacramento CA, Modesto CA, Miami FL, Ft Lee NJ, Carson City NV, and here on the first east coast tour event in Middletown NY
Family and friends turn out for the Philadelphia area tour stop in West Chester PA at Chester County Books and Music - one of the nation's largest independent booksellers. The author and his sister Julie Fekete (holding book) are at the center with their mother Barbara to the immediate right.
Books & Books - a locals favorite in South Florida hosted a signing event in Coral Gables and featured Making The Big Game in their Miami Beach and Bal Harbour locations just in time for visitors arriving to the area for Super Bowl XLIV
Northeast Homecoming
Among many window seat views during the Countdown to Kickoff book tour was this east to west look at New Orleans taken days before the city would erupt in celebration over a Saints win in SB XLIV. The vulnerabilty of New Orleans to nature's wrath is vividly evident from the air.
January 21, 2010 - Early Thursday morning the announcement from the Southwest gate in Sacramento sent a chill down my spine. Phoenix was reporting increased winds. My connecting flight to the East Coast could be subject to layover delay in the very city where my Super Bowl journey as an Accidental Spectator had ended two years earlier. Any delay could completely throw off my tightly scheduled book tour itinery that had been months in the planning. I quickly scanned Weather.com on my mobile phone and saw that indeed the wind velocity was picking up in Phoenix. By 5pm Sky Harbor would close down as gusts would top 50 mph.
I kept my fingers crossed as the Sacramento originating flight took off on time to Phoenix. Along the way, I introduced myself to the passenger in the neighboring seat. He was a burly older gentleman by the name of Don Miller who I would find out had played high school football in Western Pennsylvania, a region with a rich history of producing star players, among them Joe Montana. This passenger was from an earlier era. He was on his way to be inducted into his home county's Hall of Fame as one of four surviving members of an undefeated high school squad. Turns out, Don would go on to Columbia University and the winning ways to which he had become so accustomed in high school would give way to two agonizing seasons of defeat after defeat as part of a institution and football program that emphasized scholarship over gridiron supremacy. In Don's two years on the squad, Columbia would win only one game - against Yale. However, during his time at Columbia, my new acquaintence worked at the Foreign Press Club in New York as a doorman where he met Fidel Castro and Harry Truman. Truman showed a curiousity in the then young man and some weeks after their small talk encounter sent him a signed copy of his biography.
Fortunately, the connection flight out of Phoenix departed well before winds would ground everything and close the airport. By 7pm Eastern our aircraft was approaching touchdown in Philadelphia which would serve as a Northeastern hub for the book tour. As the plane descended, I glanced across to my new neighbor, Jim Williams, an energy consultant living in New Jersey. I asked Jim to check his copy of the New York Post to see if either the Sixers or the Flyers would be playing that night at Wachovia Center (formerly the First Union or F.U. Center as Philly fans liked to call it). Sure enough a New York-Philadelphia hockey rivalry was being renewed as the Rangers were facing off with the Flyers. Guerilla marketing opportunity! I picked up my rental vehicle and drove ten minutes along I-95 from Philadelphia International to Wachovia Center and dropped book tour announcements under about 400 windshields in the parking lot while the game was underway. Before the Flyers wrapped up a 2-0 shutout, I made my way back to the car. On the way, I could hear a muffled distant voice yelling across the dimly lit parking lot. Perhaps it was a crazy homeless guy. Whatever he was yelling, it was a repetitive chant. I had to walk towards the voice to get back to my car. I couldn't tell until I got closer to the source what I was hearing. A scraggly fellow with a shopping cart filled with t-shirts was calling out...
"DALLAS SUCKS t-shirts FIVE DOLLARS!"
Philly and New York may be sporting rivals but they are generally unified in their dislike for Dallas, particularly the Dallas Cowboys. This entrepeneur was not selling officially licensed NFL gear but he was scraping together a living on "Dallas Sucks". Three weeks later the NFL would slap a cease and desist order on t-shirt vendors in New Orleans for selling shirts with the Saints rallying cry "WHO DAT?". Both Louisiana U.S. Senators would call out the league's heavy handed tactics to prevent perceived trademark infringement ridiculous. But whether the trademark filing with the State of Florida was enforceable or not, the chilling effect was enough to shut down the vendors who along with many supporters claimed that no one owns the phrase "WHO DAT". I wondered later if Jerry Jones and the NFL would try to trademark DALLAS SUCKS and put a damper on the t-shirt guy in Philly.
It's a Thursday night Philly stopover before driving north to New York. An opportunity for spontaneous promotional activity outside the Rangers-Flyers game takes me to the familiar South Philly Sports Complex. Clockwise from middle left is the Wachovia (formerly First Union or "F.U".) Center, the Spectrum (slated for demolishion in 2010 - thanks for great memories including concerts, Flyers Stanley Cups, "Doctor J" and more), Citizens Bank Ballpark (Phillies), and Lincoln Financial Field (Eagles).
Patrick Oswalt as Paul Aufiero in the Sundance selection independent film "Big Fan". There are few things New York and Philly sports fans agree on - sentinments on Dallas being one. My promotional partnership with First Independent Pictures in 2009 brought Making The Big Game announcement cards into selected theaters around the country. Below is a photo of me and my wife Mindy Steuer after my prescreening talk for one of the Big Fan premier nights in California.
Outside the State Theater for the "Big Fan" film premiere. The fictional sceenplay about an obsessed Giants fan included scenes shot outside the Meadowlands parking lot.
January 22, 2010 (in route to New York via NJ Turnpike) My Friday morning trek to the first tour stop in Middletown NY followed a path up the New Jersey Turnpike past the soon to be demolished old home and soon to be occupied new home of the New York Football Giants. The Jets came to the older of the two stadiums well after the 1976 opening and always felt like a bit of a guest to be tolerated. Now it was the Jets that were still alive in the playoff chase but on the road in Indianapolis insuring that the last games played in the old "Giants" stadium would be regular season affairs.
The Giants closed out the Meadowlands with an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Carolina 41-9 on December 27, 2009 which eliminated Big Blue from playoff contention. That would leave the Jets, who were always like strangers in their own supposed house, to write a positive final footnote for the stadium, a structure rumored to have served as the final resting place place for disappeared Teamsters Boss Jimmy Hoffa. The Jets 37-0 win over Cincinnati would propel them towards a storybook playoff run nearly as impressive as the Giants own streak in early 2008.
On my way north, I passed the two stadiums. The billion dollar new shared home of the Jets and the Giants is an open roof structure which potentially could host a future Super Bowl presuming a cover is added or the league, networks, and attendees get over their fear of the elements. The picture I snapped would soon be impossible to recreate without Photoshop as the old stadium faces the wrecking ball later in 2010.
Vince Lombardi's name is etched on the Super Bowl trophy. However, would this New York area product and one time Giants assistant coach (1954-58), also appreciate being immortalized with his very own Jersey Turnpike rest stop...not just any stop mind you, but the "Last Service Area"?
The past and present of Giants and Jets football side by side
Vince Lombardi remembered - on the Jersey Turnpike
Back To Where The Chase Began
Cousins Jeffrey Fekete and Jason Kainu reunite for the first time since Super Bowl XLII for the Middletown NY book signing event. Jason was swept up into the last minute chase for tickets that inspired Making The Big Game: Tales of an Accidental Spectator. His improvised flight plan from New York to Phoenix in February 2008 took indirect connections and racked up nearly 10,000 air miles round trip.
Friday Evening - January 22, 2010 - I pulled into the Borders Books at Middletown's Galleria Mall about an hour before the book signing. Middletown is a bedroom community of New York City but once was home to factories and its own industry beyond purely retail and service sector. The mall is in the "new" part of town and looks like most of the rest of modern American suburbia. I came here because it's where my Super Bowl ticket Odyssey got traction thanks to my cousin and life long Middletown resident Jason Kainu. Jason was a fellow "accidental spectator" and it was his good fortune to be able to wait on line at the Meadowlands box office on next to no notice to pick up the transferred lottery seats to the Big Game in 2008. He is featured prominently in the book so it was only appropriate that the East Coast tour start in Middletown. Our late grandparents raised Jason's father and my mother here in this middle sized town tucked near the base of the Catskill Mountains. It was quite strange and touching that the first reader to purchase a book on the Countdown To Kickoff tour was Lynne, shown here with her young son and daughter. I had never met Lynne before this evening but she took a liking to the book and felt it would be a fitting gift for her mother. After deciding that the gift should come from her son Mikey, the family requested that I sign their copy of Making The Big Game "To Grandma"... I couldn't help but recall at that moment how my own grandmother, an elementary school teacher, enjoyed reading with me when I was a young boy sitting in her kitchen in Middletown, New York.
Lynne and her two children Mikey and Shannon stop by the Middletown Borders in the Galleria Mall for some Friday evening shopping. They would become the first of many new Making The Big Game readers on the eastern leg of the book tour.
Jason's Dad and my uncle, Rick Kainu shows of the new Middletown New York Engine Number 6.
Special guest and fellow "Accidental Spectator" Jason Kainu (right) meets a new Making The Big Game reader at Middletown Borders.
In a New Jersey State of Mind
Saturday January 23, 2010 - Next stop North Jersey. First an early morning tour with my Uncle Rick of the new Engine 6 parked in the Middletown firehouse across the street from the Kainu family home, then off to the Palisades Interstate Parkway to meet up with banks of the Hudson. Fort Lee, New Jersey sits at the base of the George Washington Bridge perched above the mighty river that divides Manhattan from North Jersey. Lifelong Giants fans have reminded me more than once that the New York Giants really have been the New Jersey Giants ever since moving to the Meadowlands. Placing this book signing event in Manhattan not only would have been difficult in New York's highly competitive media and book market, it would have likely offended the die hard season ticket holders that I extended invitations to. So it would be Borders Books in Fort Lee, a town that, like the Giants franchise, is considered part of the fabric of the New York metropolitan area but actually exists in its' long stateline crossing shadow.
This store appearance would be a low key affair compared to most other events on the tour, perhaps because the Giant faithful stayed home to lick their wounds while the Jets were the toast of the town on this AFC Championship Eve. New York radio was buzzing with excited callers anticipating the Jets Colts matchup and projecting visions of Joe Namath onto rookie QB Mark Sanchez. One of the Borders store employees even broke out a vintage AFL New York Titans jersey to acknowledge early Jet history and give an appreciated nod to my store appearance. I was thrilled to be reunited at this event with fellow SB XLII spectator, Michael Hochman. The last and only other time I had seen him and his son Justin was February 3, 2008 in Section 430 at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. Michael is one of several fans featured in the game day chapter Living Up To The Billing. We had a great chat reminiscing about the Giant upset over New England. He also expressed concern like many other Giant and Jet fans about the prohibitive cost of maintaining season tickets for the upcoming season in the new stadium down the road. Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs), a wildly unpopular invention of Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis on the West Coast, have made their way to New York and start at five thousand dollars for the upper deck.
View of Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River from Fort Lee, New Jersey
This bookstore employee in Fort Lee dressed appropriately for the day by donning a vintage AFL New York Titans jersey featuring the number of Jet standout cornerback Darrelle Revis. Revis was born 22 years after the Titans were renamed the New York Jets.
Michael Hochman and Jeffrey Fekete reconnect at Borders in Fort Lee, NJ nearly two years after first meeting in Section 430 at Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008. Michael's first recollection of attending a New York Giants game dated back to 1968 when the team was struggling in the cellar of the NFL.
Saying farewell to the Meadowlands at sunset. This view through a screen of trees is an unusual perspective in the otherwise heavily industrialized landscape of Northern New Jersey. Visible against the sun are rooflines of the old and new football stadiums.
A Philadelphia Story
Sunday January 24, 2010 - Adrenline fuels my book tour travels not unlike it had once fueled my chase for Big Game tickets. The Countdown to Kickoff rolled on to Philadelphia where sports passions run hot and fans are, shall we say...opinionated. Chester County Books and Music Company is one of the premier independently owned book stores on the East Coast. Owner Joe Draybak is the current president of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association and he along with manager Thea Kotroba were quite supportive of my visit considering that Making The Big Game is hardly a New York Times bestseller. That didn't keep this event from being successful thanks not only to family and friends, but quite a few regular store customers who came out for the Sunday morning appearance.
An hour before the event in CCBMC's adjacent Magnolia Cafe, I divided my attention at breakfast between my good high school friend Earle Drake who was seated across the table and the radio crew of Dolphins Fanatics Online. DFO Radio was on the other end of the phone in my ear doing a live show from South Florida. I was a guest on their live webcast and for about ten minutes broke my own personal rule of not talking on cell phones in restaurants. I hope both Earle and my fellow diners gave me some slack. The interview covered tips for Big Game ticket shoppers and my upcoming Miami signing event scheduled two days later. Julie Kicklighter, a former Dolphin cheerleader and capable promoter, had connected with the book tour via Twitter and had arranged this call. Along with co-hosts Scott and Casey, Julie guided the conversation about the frantic resale ticket market.
At 10:30 am the store appearance got underway and this would possibly be my busiest two hours of the week. I moved back and forth between store shoppers I had just met and a number of friends including some I had not seen in over 25 years but had reconnected with through the web. My old Air Force friend from California, Jim Gribble, now relocated back to Maryland, made the drive north with his son TJ. While Jim likes his hometown Ravens, his real NFL favorites are the New England Patriots and his son's chosen idol already is Tom Brady. On this day, Jim trailed along with a small post signing contingent that included my mother, sister, and my friend John Ricci from the old neighborhood. John was part of our no holds barred childhood street hockey team. Together we watched the AFC title game at the Stadium Grille, also in West Chester, PA and right next to the bookstore.
At the Stadium Grille, I spied a framed San Francisco 49ers "54" jersey on the wall. Here in the middle of Eagles country, a transplant to Northern California is again reminded of a book chapter titled "A Home Game is Never Far Away". The signed jersey was worn by Niner linebacker Lee Woodall who attended nearby West Chester State College - a school not known for NFL standouts. But there was Lee's jersey, hanging reverently in this corner 3000 miles from my current West Coast home. In recent times, players, teams, and fans have all become more mobile and have taken contracts, franchises, and careers with them to new destinations. It only made sense that this seemingly incongruent Niner apparel would show up here - not unlike a photo I referenced in Making The Big Game. A shot of former San Jose State Spartan and Eagle reserve back Josh Parry graces the wall of The Cheesesteak Grille in Sacramento, CA. The photo at right taken on Championship Sunday at the Stadium Grille illustrates and mirrors the point that a home game truly never is far away.
Conference Championship Sunday starts early in West Chester, PA. Earle, a high school friend of the author, treated to breakfast before the signing event at Chester County Books and Music Company. One Sunday 30 years prior, they were working together in a college cafeteria kitchen and listening to a portable radio blare a description of an unbelievable finale to a Eagles-Giants regular sesaon game. An unexpected fumble by Giants QB Joe Pisarcik on what should have been a clock killing final play from scrimmage would be scooped up by the Eagles Herman Edwards and run in for a TD. The improbable Eagle victory would forever be known as the Miracle of The Meadowlands. Click the photo above to go back to Sunday November 19, 1978.
Two generations of Patriots fans, Jim and son TJ, sit in on the West Chester, PA signing event. Jim and the author served together at Castle Air Force Base in California where much of the chapter "True Giants and Patriots" is set.
The San Francisco jersey of a Pennsylvania collegian hangs at The Stadium Grille in West Chester, PA
Another Philly reunion, this time with Tom DuBois, who took an early childhood liking to the Minnesota Vikings. Later that day, Tom hosted Jeffrey at his home for the NFC title game. Tom's own last minute championship game experience came in 1980. Hours before gametime, a friend invited Tom to use an unclaimed ticket for what would be the decisive game as the Philadelphia Phillies won their first World Series.
Peter Fey (center) and the author were colleagues on their junior high and high school newspapers. Peter's son Alex at left is a big fan of the Simpsons TV series and was once rendered or "Simpsonized" by one of the show's animators.
On Championship Sunday, Jeffrey Fekete was a guest on the Dolphins Fanatics Online (DFO) Radio Show. The DFO crew; Scott, Casey, and Julie, fielded the author's call in from Pennsylvania and helped promote the upcoming signing event scheduled for two days later in the Miami area. Click the logo above to listen to the show which also featured Ralph Lanier, the NFL's "Director of Fandemonium".
Sunday Evening January 24, 2010 After a quick visit to South Philly to check in on my Italian Godfather Bob (no kidding and nothing illegal), I followed up on an invite from another friend from my youth, Tom Dubois. Like my own random early attachment to the Dolphins, Tom grew up in the Northeast following the Minnesota Vikings. A gift jersey from his dad started him following the Vikes of Tarkenton, Eller, and Foreman. He broke out his old football cards mostly from the late sixties and early seventies spreading them over the coffee table at his home while a new edition of the Vikings battled the Saints. The game and the reunion were equally enjoyable although Tom's 18 year old son wondered aloud how his Dad and I could divide our attention between a great game in the present and some old pieces of cardboard from the past.
All too quickly, I bid a good bye and readied for a plane trip to South Florida.
Getting In Front of The Big Game
Monday January 25, 2010 (Day One in Super Bowl XLIV Host City) - Toto, you're not in Philly anymore. The Countdown To Kickoff Book Tour rolls into day one and ground zero of Super Bowl pregame hype. What the hell was I doing trying to compete with all things pro football now converging on the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area? Well, I wasn't trying to compete exactly, I was running out on the field before the gates truly had opened - more on that in a moment.
The day prior the conference title games had launched the Colts and the Saints into the Big Game. The void left by the traditional two week window between the AFC and NFC Championship games and the Super Bowl was about to be filled for the first time by the NFL with more football. The 40th edition of the Pro Bowl formerly played after the Super Bowl in Hawaii was now scheduled a week prior to the SB XLIV on Saturday January 30th at Miami's Sun Life (formerly Land Shark, formerly Pro Player, formerly Pro Player Park, formerly Joe Robbie, formerly Dolphins, formerly Dolphin) Stadium. Practice sessions for the AFC and NFC all stars (or at least all the stars that didn't feign injury or simply passed on the game) would start in Florida on Wednesday the 27th. My book signing was scheduled for Tuesday the 26th.
On Monday the national sports media was still recapping what had just happened the day before in Indianapolis and Minnesota. Two exciting games were being dissected and digested. The Fort Lauderdale airport was decked out in Super Bowl banners but the players, league officials, celebrities, and gawkers had yet to engulf the Super Bowl host city. Unlike my earlier tour stops where I had many friends and family for moral and retail support, here, I had only one friend who really knew or cared that Making The Big Game would be trying to make a name in a strange city. Dan Kunz was a long time Sacramento co-worker and fellow radio ad sales colleague who had relocated the previous year to the Miami area. He enthusiastically embraced the role of unofficial book publicist from his desk at Beasley Broadcasting, home of Miami Dolphins flagship station 560 WQAM. He also cut my lodging expenses to zero in this cosmopolitan and very international town when he said "mi casa es su casa" (my house is your house).
On arrival in Fort Lauderdale, I made a straight line for Books and Books in Coral Gables just a couple of miles below South Beach. Here, just a block off the "Miracle Mile" of high end retail shops and elegant Spanish influenced architecture, was a jewel of a bookstore that would host my event the following evening. Like the players who want to check out the field before game day, I wanted to get familiar with this literary venue. What I found was an elegant courtyard, wine bar, and open air cafe behind wrought iron entry gates and flanked by two softly lit enclosed wings that each felt much more like an inviting library than a typical shopping mall bookstore. This place invited one to read and linger. Books and Books is not designed as a quick stop to grab a magazine or 50% off best seller between an escalator ride and a Sbarro sandwich. I had a good feeling when I originally proposed an appearance here to Books and Books Events Director Cristina Nosti and store manager Jennifer Eldredge-Bird. They were both at the store when I arrived as my own advance team of one to check the place out. They welcomed me and wished me luck for the following day's scheduled signing event.
Banners announce the 44th edition of the Big Game and greet visitors arriving at Fort Lauderdale airport. The Countdown to Kickoff Book Tour touched down in South Florida on Monday morning January 25th
Dan Kunz - Friend and host of the author and publicist extraordinare for the Florida leg of the book tour.
Old world elegance meets South Florida chic on the Miracle Mile near Books & Books in Coral Gables
I sat down and ordered lunch in the inviting cafe at the back of the store. A long bench ran across the rear wall and faced windows that offered a view of the inner courtyard. The layout was narrow but conducive to striking up conversation which I did with a proud grandmother from Minnesota visiting her son in law in the Miami area. We chatted about the fallen Vikings and the true pastime of her region - hockey. Then she offered that her son in law and daughter were big Giants fans and pulled out two photos including one of her infant grandchild in New York Giants gear. She soon retrieved a copy of Making The Big Game from the store's display rack and became my first new reader in South Florida.
A reader and proud Minnesota grandma at Books and Books pulled out these photos of her New York Giants fans family members who happen to live in Miami
By late afternoon, it was time to get over to Dan's place in Fort Lauderdale about ten blocks from the beach renowned for years as a college spring break hotspot. For over a decade, I had seen Dan every workday in Sacramento and now we caught up on events of the past year since his relocation to Florida. After an old style Italian dinner down by the ocean promenade, he snapped a picture of me standing in front of the large looming roman numerals XLIV placed at the entry to the beach.
Fort Lauderdale Beach Welcomes SB XLIV
The newly rechristened Sun Life Stadium all dressed up to host the NFL Pro Bowl
Let the pregame hype begin! Arriving at the studios of 560 WQAM for a signing event day interview.
Tuesday January 26, 2010 (Day Two in the Super Bowl XLIV Host City) - In retrospect, the biggest day on the tour... Dan left me an extra key and headed in to the Beasley Broadcasting radio complex in Miami early. I left my guest room at Casa Kunz to catch up remotely on work in Sacramento on a Wi-Fi connection at his neighborhood coffee shop. About 90 minutes before my scheduled 1 pm interview on The Sid Rosenburg Show, I met Dan in the WQAM lobby and he gave me a tour of the busy facility that housed three stations. From there I tagged along as he made a delivery to one of his new advertising clients, a gun and knife superstore. Welcome to Florida, where a hundred bucks and a clean police record can land you a concealed weapons permit. He introduced me to the personable store owner - one in a growing base of clients Dan had developed from scratch after leaving a well established account following in Northern California.
On return to 560 WQAM, Dan deposited me at the studio door with Sid Rosenburg's producer Victor who was juggling all of the guest traffic and planning that accompanies setting up two weeks worth of guest interviews during Super Bowl week. I was merely an opening warm up act to the real celebs, current and former players, coaches, national media people, actors, comedians, and other assorted stars. They would be sitting in with Sid, Jim Mandich, Channing Crowder, and other WQAM personalities during off site broadcasts that would ramp up starting the next day when these shows went on the road to the Pro Bowl practice facility at a nearby high school. From there things would only get more frantic for Victor and his crew right up to game day. Pointing me in the right direction for my segment with Sid would be routine for Victor. For me, it was hardly my first radio interview but by far it was my most timely and important one given the location and WQAM's identity as the Dolphins flagship station.
The ubiquitous "station van" - an essential accessory in the world of broadcast promotion. This one is wrapped up in Miami Dolphins colors for 560 WQAM, the station "Where Football Always Matters!"
Tuesday January 26th - 1:07 pm - Few would mistake Sid Rosenburg for anyone but a dyed in the wool New Yorker. There were plenty here in the greater Miami area and Sid's rapid fire personality gave his origins away instantly. He was also a big Giants fan and eager to hear about how someone without insider connections got to one of the most exciting Super Bowls in recent memory.
Sid walked his listeners through the Super Bowl ticket lottery and his interest peaked when it came to the ruthless resale marketplace. "How do you get that list?" he probed when the topic narrowed to pinning down existing season ticket holders that get pulled for Super Bowl purchase rights. I had no idea but I did let Sid's audience know that in 2007 the New England Patriots had tried to legally force Boston area independent brokers to give up lists of fans that had resold their Pats tickets. Sid's questions were right on the money and the minutes on air flew by.
He also took a keen interest in how personally revealing my narrative story of Making The Big Game had been. "Any arrests?" he joked. "You gotta put that stuff in even if ya have to make it up!". Directly across from me on the studio desk was a galley proof copy of Sid's own forthcoming book "You're Wrong and You're Ugly: The Highs and Lows of a Radio Bad Boy". Nearly as quickly as my encounter with this radio bad boy had started, it would be over. Sid gave a nice on air plug for the signing event in Coral Gables scheduled for that evening and wrapped up his last in studio interview before the show would take to the road for next eleven days. I gave him a signed copy of Making The Big Game and geared up for more retail promotion in the few hours I had remaining before the Books and Books appearance.
WQAM Miami midday host Sid Rosenburg broke out his New York Giants Super Bowl XLII champions shirt for the interview. Click photo above and hear the conversation.
Most every road in Miami is the scenic route
Serious "windshield time" across the Miami metro area this afternoon. In the narrow window of a few hours between the radio interview and the Books & Books signing, I wanted to stop into as many other book retailers as possible to secure late orders for Making The Big Game. After all, tens of thousands of football fans would be descending on the region in a couple of days. Prominent displays of my title in major chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders could translate to impluse sales to tourists. After a few mildly interested to tepid cold calls around the region, I hit paydirt at Borders inside Dolphin Mall. The upscale shopping center was on the doorstep of several major hotels. General Manager Jose Quevedo immediately took me to his office and pulled up the title on his computer. I had been pounding on my publisher to connect the arcane distribution dots so I could track demand and insure adequete supply. Jose clicked and placed an order for 14 available copies on the spot. I promised to tag his store along with Books & Books three locations on the radio campaign I would be running the following week. I had just enough time to get over to Coral Gables and set up for the signing.
After navigating around building rush hour traffic, I arrived at Books & Books and connected with Assistant Manager Steve Moss. This would be my thirteenth book signing in the past twevle months. By now I had come to expect anything from a bare table to a nicely arranged display. Most stores ask authors what type of set up works best for their needs. Steve was right on top of creating a great space and setting for a combination talk and Q&A. An open wing of the store was set off from the cafe courtyard and the walls were stacked high with shelved books that encircled an open meeting space. There was a speaker's lecturn with mounted microphone, an adjacent square table and chair to sign books, and about thirty chairs divided over three long rows in neat straight formation. I was a bit terrified and not because this was a public speaking engagement. I had once given a college commencement address to ten thousand people and had done numerous radio and TV appearances. My fear was that I would be speaking to an empty room. By the scheduled 6:30pm start, I was immensely relieved as Steve got behind the lecturn and introduced me to about a dozen gathered readers and customers - pretty typical for a book signing by someone with no celebrity to speak of. As I said, my plan all along had been to bail out of the Super Bowl host city before the "real" celebrities arrived.
I started out by covering my background and the basic events which inspired Making The Big Game. With each interview, appearance, and pitch to journalists or producers, this synopsis had become more polished. By now, I could practically do it in my sleep and probably had. However, this was an informed audience because they knew Super Bowls. When I made the Big Game in 2008, Phoenix was hosting only its second Super Bowl. Miami had rolled out the Super Bowl red carpet not once, not twice, but TEN times altogether. This gathered group of largely local residents could appreciate the economic impact, the media frenzy, and the circus. Their region was more than capable of not just hosting but contributing to the spectacle from edge of the Everglades to the shores of South Beach. My presentation hit stride when I recounted the famous Joe Namath Super Bowl III victory "prediction" issued at the Miami Touchdown Club 40 years earlier. I was too young to remember the event but from speaking with older sports fans I've come to a conclusion. If the Brooklyn Dodgers move to L.A. in 1958 marked the "end of innocence" in Major League Baseball, I believe Super Bowl III and the rise the brash Joe Namath marked the end of innocence for pro football. After the Dodgers, the idea of team as permanent community fixture declined. After Broadway Joe, the idea of the name on the front of the jersey being larger than the name on the back would be challenged. In a sense, we have all become a bit less loyal to institutions that can betray us and a bit more like the free agent responsive more to self and attraction of the high bidder. Whether this represents progress is open to debate. What does seem clear is where Making The Big Game once meant arriving to watch or play - it now means taking ownership in creating the event itself.
Seeing your book in a store display window is almost as fun as first seeing it in print
Young Rex chose my Coral Gables signing as part of a school project. I hope he got an "A"!
Books & Books Assistant Manager Steve Moss hosted the evening signing event. It was easy to see why when he showed off his custom 18-1 t-shirt signifying the imperfect record of the New England Patriots in the 2007-08 campaign. Steve is one of many Giants fans in South Florida. He had a double rooting interest in both the Giants and the singular achievement of Miami's 72-73 Dolphins which posted a 17-0 mark.
Night falls on Aragon Avenue
The lights of Coral Gables City Hall cast a nice glow on the last eastern stop of the book tour. At daybreak, California would be calling.
Going West
My unexpected Super Bowl journey that had started in 2008 now was coming full circle ... back to the Pacific time zone where I had originally planned to watch the Big Game between the Giants and Patriots like nearly a hundred million other casual and avid fans. Instead a crazed ten days would beget an intense year of writing and editing and a second year of publishing and promoting. I returned to my "real" job in Sacramento on Thursday January 28th where coworkers taking an interest in all things Super Bowl were both congratulatory and curious about my travels. Except I wasn't finished just yet.
On Saturday January 30, I made the trek down the spine connecting California's battered agricultural heartland - Highway 99. The road extends from Canada to Mexico and in between passes through Sacramento, Lodi, Stockton, Modesto, Turlock, Atwater, and my destination that morning - Merced. The Barnes & Noble in the Merced Marketplace was within walking distance of my home for nearly four years in the mid 1980s and just down the road from the former Castle Air Force Base. I had sandwiched Chapter IX "True Giants and Patriots" between the Super Bowl Sunday ceremonial flyover and the opening coin toss. At the end of Chapter VIII "Phoenix Rising", I recalled the moments before kickoff and jets streaking over the University of Phoenix stadium. On the next page, I abruptly but purposefully took readers back more than twenty years earlier to a homicide scene and a Merced County jail cell where I briefed a Marine reservist... twenty four hours after he had pumped several fatal bullet shots into his wife.
The chapter was a conscious reflection on the notion of heroism that is sometimes twisted by sport, media, and our own imperfect perceptions. While Merced and neighboring Atwater comprise a sleepy little corner of the world, it was a corner of my world that somehow fit seamlessly into Making The Big Game: Tales of an Accidental Spectator. I've never really spent meaningful time on a football field or a battlefield but I think both my job and my time at Castle during the Cold War helped me appreciate the difference between the colorful uniforms I saw on February 3, 2008 and those that belong to "True Giants and Patriots".
After meeting new readers in Merced, including one who also served at Castle and another who attended the 1951 NFL Championship Game, I drove back north to Sacramento close to where Chapter IX ends. Sacramento's Borders Books is just blocks from the California State University Sacramento campus and Hornet Stadium. In 2000 and again in 2004, the venue played host to the United States Olympic Track and Field Trials. Nearly 200,000 fans streamed through the gates of an expanded Hornet Stadium for eight days of intense qualifying competition. Some of the world's most elite athletes were racing, throwing, and jumping for U.S. team positions in the Sydney and Athens Games. In this celebratory event setting, my marketing and advertising life connected with my past Air Force life. For my small but critical role in arranging an opening flyover for the Trials in July 2004, an Air Force officer would discreetly give me a piece of memorabilia - one that I use as a transitional device towards opening the game day chapter in Making The Big Game.
Coming Full Circle to the Original Game Plan
If you've come this far, you know the story and the inspiration for Making The Big Game.
Before I retraced paths and themes in the book on the Countdown To Kickoff tour... before I wrote a single word of Making The Big Game...before I attended the forty second edition of the Big Game ... and before a freak bounce of fate sent this Accidental Spectator on a tumultuous and twisted road to the Super Bowl and back again....
Before any of that ...there had been an original game plan...that is, a much more routine plan for watching the Super Bowl like most people watch it...on television.
While the Super Bowl will never be quite the same for me going forward, I had always made some sort of plan for watching The Big Game. There is a process. It might involve a party. It might involve friends at my home or accepting an invitation to another home from a friend or co-worker. It might involve waiting to see what team plays and this could prompt more careful and considered preparation. For whatever bizarre reason, I make a game plan. I mark the event...because I will remember it. I love the game for the game, but it has also become a strange form of life reference.
For any given Super Bowl, I can tell you whether I watched at homes of former coworkers I no longer work with or know (1991 - Scott Norwood wide right, 2003 - Bucs show up Gannon, Rice, and Gruden, 2007 - Peyton Manning's happier SB memory). I can tell you if it was at a wonderful house with great food and a now deceased dear friend who cared little about football but was a great guest at any party (1990 - 49ers blow out Denver...R.I.P. Steve). I can tell you if I was with my wife at a bar that smelled bad and poured crappy beer (2000 - Ravens knock off the Giants). I can tell you if a former Super Bowl hero was in the same room watching (49er Dan Bunz - 1993 Dallas throttles the Bills)... and I can tell you where I watched on TV as that same Super Bowl hero made his game saving goal line tackle 12 years earlier (Syracuse University Brewster Hall - 1981 - 49ers first win over the Bengals).
I have no idea what I did for my tenth birthday in 1972. But I can tell you that I was planted in front of a Zenith black and white TV sixth months earlier watching Don Shula's Dolphins fall to the Cowboys 24-3 in Super Bowl VI. I can remember Miami QB Bob Griese running for his life from the Cowboys' Bob Lilly and being sacked for a massive 29 yard loss like it was YESTERDAY. I have no idea why.
Because I've split Christmas Day (also my mother's birthday) on the West Coast and East Coast for over twenty years , I can not say with certainty whether I spent December 25, 1996 in California or Pennsylvania. But I can tell you that a month and a day later, I was at the Sacramento Hilton Hotel watching Brett Farve lead the Green Bay Packers to their first and only win since Super Bowl II in 1968. I was watching with my wife Mindy and with Alan Emerson - a guy I first met through another friend about six years earlier and had not seen in about six years from the time I wrote this. While I've lost touch with Alan, I still know his ex-roommate Paul Vandezande. He lives in Packer country now but I watched my only Super Bowl with Paul on January 26, 1992 (Redskins over Bills) a walk across the park away from where he would videotape my then girlfriend and now wife getting married two and a half years later.
I watched two other Redskins victories with former Air Force friends. The first was in 1983 with Chuck Trill. He signed up a year before me and that day we both drank underage at a Pennsylvania bar (since closed). The second was in 1988 in Santa Cruz with Pete Kollman after we both had become civilians and were each glad for it. On January 22, 1984, I watched a now famous MacIntosh Apple Computer ad with its creepy Orwellian theme. I watched it largely alone in a deserted Castle Air Force Base recreation center barely a week after arriving in to my assignment in California. Marcus Allen's touchdown run for the Raiders was a highlight that year in what remains the only Super Bowl win for a team based in Los Angeles (look it up).
Yes, this for of recall is a little weird, I know.
I have met much more intense football fans than me who might know the final score, the MVP, and countless other facts about the '85 Chicago Bears...and yet they have no idea where or with who they watched the Bears win Super Bowl in January 1986. I do, although I'm also not a Bears or a Patriots fan. Other people who don't follow the game at all will know exactly where they were when the Saints came marching in 2010. If they were on Bourbon Street, they may not remember the next morning after the Saints took down the mighty Colts. However, they will remember that game and their experience forever. Chances are good most of those same New Orleans revelers will have much more trouble recalling their surroundings for SB XLV years after 2011. I'll remember both. At this point, because I've consciously decided I will.
You too may always go to some recurring event or place (physically or psychologically) once or more every year. That place may have no more importance than helping you tie together other eras, other people, other circumstances. In my case, the realization that Super Bowls were like personal bookmarks proved to be a big reason why Making The Big Game in person in 2008 prompted me to write what is one sense part memoir and part road trip story. While a fair amount of autobiographical anecdote when into Making The Big Game: Tales of an Accidental Spectator, one intent of the narrative was to illustrate how we all tend to define, recall, and give meaning to life by using pivotal moments as anchors of sorts...- much in the way a highlight reel anchors the summary of a game or a season. I believe people are naturally curious about knowing where their fellow human beings were and what they were doing on specific dates of momentous events (JFK assassination, fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11/2001). We ask people "where were you when..." not because we want to replay the event itself. We ask because we are confident the act of recollection will trigger a more vivid and personal memory for both the person who posed the question and the person who answers. It's an invitation to summon and exchange personal snapshots of a collective significant moment...and in a way open the door for individuals to relate or draw out other snapshots from their respective life "album". I hope the power of such an exercise is not lost as more people Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube their timestamped random fragments of life. I'm hopeful that technology by bonding people in virtual community actually makes face to face human interaction more rich and productive.
So where was I originally planning to watch The Big Game in 2008? Lake Tahoe... where Mindy and I have had the joy of owning a second home since 2005. It had been in South Lake Tahoe where we watched the game in 1995 (Niners over Chargers) at radio concert event. The host (syndicated radio personality Art Good) was a Chargers fan. It's the only small personal fact I know about Art. Mindy and I made small talk afterwords with jazz guitarist and former Jefferson Starship member Craig Chaquico (sorry, there I go again - it just STICKS because it was on Super Bowl Sunday).
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 6, 2010 Carson City, Nevada (26 hours to kickoff)
I resolved to end the Countdown To Kickoff Tour in February 2010 in the place where I would have most likely been on Super Bowl weekend in February 2008 - in the Lake Tahoe area...a place referenced at some length in two different chapters of Making The Big Game. On Saturday the 6th, Borders Books in Carson City, Nevada welcomed me for a Super Bowl Eve signing appearance. Here I met Marv Richardville, whose business card told me he "sings & tells stories for all occasions". Marv actually attended Super Bowl I (The AFL-NFL Championship Game in 1967). He went to see Vince Lombardi's Packers play the Kansas City Chiefs on a complete whim and after a game day invite from a buddy. The game was not sold out. He paid ten dollars for his ticket. He also relayed to me how the stadium ushers at the Los Angeles Coliseum 43 years ago instructed him and thousands of other fans to move from their upper deck seats down into the lower bowl of the stadium so fewer empty seats would show up on the televsion broadcast. It was nearly two years to the day since I had purchased the elusive third seat for the 2008 Super Bowl. Like so many other moments on the tour, this odd coincidence added to the experience of connecting with readers and fans.
I also had a great chat with Rita Geil, a Nevaada poet and artist who could not have cared less about the Super Bowl but was fascinated by the spectacle and cultural reference point the game has become. She happily bought a copy not long after I mentioned to her that the only American TV broadcast which had outdrawn the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl XLII had been the final episode of M*A*S*H. It turns out she had been working as a writer at CBS when that show aired in 1983. The very next day, Super Bowl XLIV would break the monumental 27 year old TV ratings record of M*A*S*H - prompting numerous media references to the longevity of Hawkeye Pierce's swan song. I'm have little doubt that Rita took extra note of our pleasant talk from the day prior.
GAME DAY - February 7, 2010 - Cal Neva Casino Resort - Crystal Bay, Nevada (North Shore Lake Tahoe)
As the name implies, The Cal Neva Casino Resort sits astride the state borders of California and Nevada. I describe the colorful and sometimes shady past of this gambling landmark near the opening of Chapter VI Festival in the Desert. The Reno sister property, Club Cal Neva, runs one of the most active and lucrative legal sports betting operations in the world. Nearly even NFL published point spread owes origins to the Cal Neva's sports book. Today, the original property, the Cal Neva, where Frank Sinatra once held court under the Circle Bar's chandelier embedded with over 7000 German crystals, is in bank receivership. The secret tunnels leading to bungalows JFK and Marilyn Monroe reported cavorted are still there. The hotel and casino is still open but being run by an outside management company that was more than open to creative and inexpensive marketing ideas for Super Bowl Sunday.
Most every entertainment venue, hotel, or sports bar in the nation invites fans to spend day of The Big Game with them. The appeals are familiar - Big Screen TVs! Free Appetizers! Drink Specials! The (fill in your favorite beer or distilled spirits) Girls! Prize Drawings! Halftime Giveaways! Besides becoming the biggest of Big Games, the biggest advertising showcase, the biggest halftime entertainment, the biggest television show, the Super Bowl as become the biggest day for countless food and beverage managers all looking for a piece of the game day consumer spending and a unique "hook" to help draw people.
This meant that in early February 2010, a local resident or a winter tourist could pick up the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza newspaper or the Lake Tahoe Action entertainment guide and see the Cal Neva advertising "Six Big Screens...$2 drafts...Raffle Drawing for Two Night Stay in Las Vegas... PLUS... Meet Jeffrey Fekete, author of Making The Big Game."
For the seventeenth time in just over a year, I laid out my books and promotional materials and interacted with readers and fans. Along with my wife and my friend, Paul Conrad, who made the trip up from Sacramento, I watched a Super Bowl that featured football royalty, Peyton Manning, the anointed older brother of an unexpected winning QB from two years prior. The Manning family would not add to their trophy case on this day as Peyton's Indianapolis Colts fell to a team whose fans once literally fashioned paper bags to cover their faces in shame. On this day, another "underdog" would claim an unlikely victory for a city that the Mannings call home. The group gathered at Cal Neva's Circle Bar like so many other of the 100 million who watched Super Bowl XLIV threw most of their support to the sentinmentally, if not statistically, favored Saints. As postgame wrapped up, I thanked the Cal Neva staff, gathered up my wares, and piled them into my trunk with help of my crew of two.
People often ask me,"How are sales?" The average person does not understand how hard it really is to acheive any kind of sales traction for books. Fully 95 percent of published books sell less than a thousand copies. Appearances like these had accounted for about one hundred copies personally signed and hand delivered. About twice again that number had moved through traditional and online distribution channels. A few copies moved through the system twice after accounting for returns by retail buyers who overordered lest they be "caught short" on signing dates. I had the benefit of a reasonably unique topic, positive reviews, media ties, a marketing background, and some understanding of distribution . Of course, I did not have a big name publisher, publicity machine, or formidable advertising budget.
In purely commercial terms, the success of the book is modest at best. A cold financial accounting of outlay to revenue would be much less kind. Still, the project drew me into the world of online social networking - a place where I must be in the future to hone my professional skill set. I connected with hundreds of people from around the country. I gave public talks and interviewed for radio, television, and print. I even became a minor player in the promotion of a critically acclaimed independent movie. On top of all that, I had tremendous fun doing a couple of things that many, many people talk about doing but never get around to .... one, Making the Big Game ... and two, writing a book that was conceived while on a complete flight of fancy.
Making The Big Game will have something of a second life as an e-book and a seasonal title around December, January, and of course in the days that I will always think of as the "Countdown to Kickoff".
