In a League by Themselves$

A rather colossal misunderstanding pervades this campus. Due to a chain of events too intricate to detail here, a widely held notion contends this is exam week. But this week's true identity increasingly demands attention: It is the week of the Super Bowl, America's secular holiday, the single most commonly shared American event, the football game which invariably and understandably fails to match its build-up.

What a build-up it is, Super Bowls generally are planned three years in advance. Television advertising runs about $375,000 per half-minute and companies don't blink. And, each year, half of America becomes transfixed. At no other time do so many people do precisely the same thing. There is not one comparable money maker: Super Bowl XVII will generate about $100 million for the television network, football league and host city.

Despite the tradition of glitter and enthusiasm which we assuredly will hear more about before Sunday, it's been a rough year for football. The extended strike by players took a sizeable bite out of the season, forcing the league to rearrange the playoff format and--alas--allow just one week instead of two for Super Bowl hype. Complex questions over anti-trust and eminent domain arose after the relocation of a team. And widespread reports of rampant cocaine use among players rocked the league. In short, the seamy side of football emerged this year, making clear that the game is merely a business with plenty of greed and corruption.

Against this bleak backdrop, there would appear to be only one route to rejuvenation for the afflicted fans: football magazines, the esteemed journals which hit newsstands in the early fall and offer companionship for an entire season.

One publisher estimates that between 100 and 150 different titles battle for spots in news dealers' lineups each year offering essentially the same product: a four-color glossy action cover with pages and pages of newsprint filled with statistics and rosters and more action photos and--best of all--bold predictions on the anticipated outcome of the season. Most football magazines are "one-shots," issues that come out just once a year. Several weeks ago, I bought about half of the football magazines offered at Out of Town News. And now I've turned to them in hope that they can serve as the Great Books of the football curriculum, striving toward a more honest, traditional and less materialistic brand of football than that which emerged this season.

The titles bode such enthusiasm: All-Star Sports, Super Sports, Pro Football Yearbook, Pro Football, 1982 Football Pro Preview, Pro Quarterback 1982, 1982 Football Gazette, Goal Post Pro Football, Game Plan Pro Football, 1982 Monday Night Football, Lou Sahadi's Pro Football 1982 Annual. The headlines are similarly charged: Super Sports offers "You could hear them snickering!' Chris Collingsworth's Battle to Become a Superstar," San Francisco 49er Quarterback Joe Montana graces half of the covers of the magazines, where he "Looks to the Future." "Reveals His Plans to Keep the 49ers on Top," shows "How It Works" and is described as "Pro Football's Most Exciting Quarterback."

Conscious of the redundant coverage given Montana and others, the magazines also offer articles which strive to be different. Lou Sahadi's Pro Football Annual unveils "secret ratings on every quarterback" from the "private files" of one of the league's most respected personnel experts Goal Post Football offers a "New!! ACCU-RATE Power Rating System" for the National Football League's 28 teams. And Game Plan Pro Football employs the "Stat-Key System" for the same purpose. "The Stat-Key annual enables the fan to estimate point differences between the scores of opposing teams. The Offensive and Defensive ratings enable the fan to estimate the score of each of two opposing teams an Instant Pre-play of a game."

For a healthy dose of pure, albeit naive, sports fanaticism, football magazines are the place to turn. One magazine waxes nostalgic: "Each September, as the talk and smell of football pervades the air, the hard-core football fan experiences a feeling of profound excitement as the adrenalin begins to flow in anticipation." And the makers of Stat-Key, when detailing the edge which their system provides, explain: "The player is professional, trained in his trade. Because he is a professional among professionals, there is less of an ability gap among pro players than among college players. For example, if Cornell were to play Texas 100 times this fall, on Cornell's home field or on a neutral field, the Cornelians would undoubtedly lose all 100 encounters. In contrast, on any given day the New Orleans Saints could travel to Pittsburgh and defeat the Steelers."

At a time when football seems purged of its innocence and dominated by financial matters, these magazines re-create and embody blinding enthusiasm. The best example is this year's issue of Pro Quarterback which carries an altogether rosy profile of New Orleans running back George Rogers, who was the league's top rusher in his rookie year. The article, titled "The Making of a Superstar," chronicles the former Heisman Trophy winner's glorious first year but omits one crucial detail: Rogers' off-season admission that he has a bad drug problem which caused him to spend $10,000 on cocaine during his stellar rookie season.

While not defending that entry in a rival publication, B. R Ampolsk, who guides Super Sports, All Star Sports and two other sports publications, admits, "I don't like to get into the negative aspects of sports," which he leaves for "more sensational" magazines Ampolsk's reader is not necessarily as interested in the financial machinations, the legal machinations, as he is if his favorite players gains five yards, 10 yards or winds up with his leg in a cast."

The magazines often contain delightful hyperbole, the essence of pro sports. In a discussion of the Seattle Seahawks chances Pro Quarterback writes, "Every now and then in sports a complete unknown comes out of nowhere to explode on the public awareness with quantum force. In baseball in recent years, it's been Fernando Valenzuela, the sensational lefthander who pitched the Dodgers to a World Title in his rookie year. In hockey, it's 21-year-old Wayne Gretzky, who is re-writing the NHL scoring record book for the Edmonton Oilers. In pro football, the Scattle Scahawks have then fingers crossed. They may just have uncovered a star of that calibre in Dave Krieg, the kid from tiny Milton College."

Although these journals appear to be an in exhaustible reservoir for the untainted adulation which football is lacking, a close reading shows them to be quite a bit more calculating than what might first be presumed. Mastheads reveal that often the same group of people edit two or three different magazines, some of which unexplainably provide altogether different predictions and analysis. And these predictions sometimes are quite non-committal, apparently to avoid direct confrontation with highly partisan potential readers.

David Scott, editor-in-chief of Gary Austin's 1982 Football Pro Preview and Pro Football: The Professor's 1982 Guide to Winning, says that entirely separate staffers put together the magazines which sport identical formats. "I'm the only one that knows what both the left and the right hand are doing," he says. Yet, some of each magazine's content would suggest otherwise. The Professor, who is actually publisher Edward C. Horowitz, concludes his analysis of the Detroit Lions by saying, "Only nine players, of the 55 on the roster, remain from the pre-Clark era." Too coincidentally, Gary Austin's supposedly separate analysis similarly ends. "With only nine of 55 players on the roster from before he arrived in 1978, this is Clark's team."

The most curious case emerging from dual publications comes from the folks who put together Game Plan Pro Football and Goal Post Pro Football. These folks are basically the Del Popolos, who dominate each magazine's masthead. Seven Del Popolos--ranging from Joseph Sr. (editor and publishers) to Constance and Geraldine (administrative assistants) help assemble these "one-shots." Yet, despite the tremendous joint effort, the two magazines offer different predicted orders of finish in the league's six divisions.

Goal Post also falls victim to what close scrutiny discovers is rather imprecise analysis. In assessing the chances of Tampa Bay, the magazine "predicts." "In what appears will most assuredly be another hotly contested battle for NFC Central Division title honors in 1982, the Bucs will once more be among the highest bidders." The king of football annuals, Street and Smith's Pro Football, similarly waffles. The magazine writes: "The Washington Redskins could win it all"--but also says the same thing about the Detroit Lions, St. Louis Cardinals, the New York Giants and a bunch of other teams.

The eroding vision of football magazines as pillars of pure fun and games blurs completely when their advertising is examined. Only a few magazines carry entire sections on gambling, although The Professor's edition even carries a page of where-to-bet recommendations. (Harrah's Sports Book on "Highway 50 at Stateline, Nevada" receives high marks.) But nearly all the journals have reams of ads for gambling advice.

Dishearteningly, one telephone number provides "all scores read slowly and in the rotation used by Nevada sports books." Another, perhaps more alarming ad calls: "Football Players $$Take the Sure Shot $$ Call The Money Phone." In this increasingly distorted collage of values and priorities, an ad which appears in almost every football magazine earnestly asks. "Do you know the value of a Half Point?" Well, "you should.

A two-page ad from Reno Sports Service proclaims the Nevada group "America's "Lock Champs." They claim to have been 100 percent the past four seasons--"documented." Quite simply, "Reno Sports Service has NEVER LOST. 'LOCK' game" in that time. "For those readers unfamiliar with the term, a 'LOCK' is a game which for 'certain inside reasons' is as close as humanly possible to a sure thing. These game are 'LEAD PIPE CINCHES.' Our remarkable ability to select these 'LOCK' games him drive the sports book operators 'right up the wall and they have NO WAY OF STOPPING YOU FROM MAKING A KILLING $$$$$."

Perhaps the most unsettling entry of all is ironically a subscription ad for Football News weekly which offers the same magazines. "Call NANCY in our Circulation Department," the ad says, referring to an alluring bare-shouldered woman's photograph set apart from the ad's copy. According to Nancy's replacement at the other end of toll-free line, Nancy "hasn't worked here for some time. And also according to the faceless female voice, Nancy left no forwarding address, even for the purpose of a discussion about football magazines and the Super Bowl.