The Tribune-Star
February 04, 2008 05:30 pm
—
Pardon us. Many of us Hoosiers are not feeling super.
We just survived a Super Bowl Sunday that didn’t involve the defending champion Indianapolis Colts. Today, Indiana will again watch from the sidelines as half of America picks presidential candidates on Super Tuesday.
Hoosier voters and the Colts will be idle until May, when Indiana conducts its primary and the Colts conduct their annual mini-camp at Indianapolis. That’s three months from now. How far off is that? Well, the Chicago Cubs’ pitchers and catchers won’t report to spring training until next week. By May 6 (the date of the Indiana primary), the Cubbies will have played 32 regular-season games and might even be mathematically eliminated.
So, for this three-day stretch, folks in Indiana must be content to be Super Spectators. We must search for reasons to be interested in the superior activities of others.
At Sunday night’s football game in Arizona, Peyton Manning could be seen celebrating the game-winning touchdown pass, which shot down the vaunted New England Patriots, 17-14. Of course, Peyton was watching from a luxury box, and the quarterback throwing that gem was his kid brother Eli, of the New York Giants. But at least a Manning won the Lombardi Trophy again.
Also, Terre Haute made the Fox network pregame show. In a segment featuring NFL notables reciting the Declaration of Independence, Peyton Manning and Colts coach Tony Dungy uttered their lines from the White Chapel on the Rose-Hulman campus. (Apparently, Dungy and Manning were videotaped at last summer’s training camp.)
As for the election, Indiana’s neighbor Illinois (along with 21 other states) will conduct a Super Tuesday primary, allowing idle Hoosier voters a front-row view.
Still feeling super-depressed?
Fear not. May will be Indiana’s month. The Colts will get busy again. The Indy 500 revs up. Morel mushrooms appear. There’s also a primary, though May 6 can’t legitimately be called Super Tuesday because the only balloting on that date will happen in Indiana and North Carolina. Why not call it Super Two for Tuesday? Or Tardy Tuesday? Or, considering the Hoosier and Tar Heel states resisted the urge to move up their primaries, how about Tolerant Tuesday, Traditional Tuesday or Obsequious Tuesday?
Still, the word “super” has no special power. Patriots QB Tom Brady has three Super Bowl rings and a supermodel girlfriend and still lost on Super Sunday. Let’s just call May 6 “Tuesday.” Any Hoosiers who come home with a bread sack full of morels, though, will have had a truly super Tuesday.
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