Do You Hear That? Me Neither -- We Must Have Done A SUPER Job

The silence is deafening, which should be music to the ears of anyone who sat on the Super Bowl Host Committee, who passed out welcome materials at Metro Airport, who served drinks in any of our downtown watering holes, and who toted around the interlopers in shuttle buses and taxi cabs.

Even Paul "Dr. Z" Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated hasn't squawked.

Hosting a Super Bowl is like being an umpire in baseball: you know you must have done a good job if the complaints are kept to a minimum. And though I haven't gone out of my way looking for trouble, it seems as though our committees and volunteers and organizers in Detroit did a bang up job, because there has been barely a peep out of the naysayers.

I bring up Zimmerman, SI's supposed football guru, because it was he who went on "Good Morning America" back in January 1982 during the week of Super Bowl XVI here and trashed the city and its efforts. He complained about his hotel, which was overlooking the Southfield Freeway. He complained about the weather. He complained that there was nothing to do here. Too bad his comments came before the 1983 draft, in which he smugly scoffed at the Dolphins' first round selection.

"I don't like this pick at all. I don't know who is going to work with him down there," Dr. Z said of the young quarterback the Dolphins had just selected. Zimmerman, so wise in the game, thought the Dolphins had made a boneheaded move in picking their new signal caller.

The young quarterback was Dan Marino.

But unfortunately, the '82 Super Bowl occurred before the world realized just how untrustworthy Paul Zimmerman could be, and thus his biting words were taken as gospel.

"There was a furor" over Zimmerman's remarks, uttered on national TV's "GMA", retired (semi) Detroit News columnist Jerry Green told me a few months back. "Paul Zimmerman dissed Detroit, and Detroit being Detroit, we got very defensive and angry." Green said the city officials fired back, as did its citizens. Problem was, Zimmerman's comments must have made the rest of the media contingent feel comfy to bark, because as much as the pro-Detroit case was made, the venomous anti-Detroit words flew with just as much vigor, maybe more so. It was not a pretty backdrop leading up to the game, which was actually one of the better Super Bowls -- on the field. The 49'ers nipped the Bengals, 26-21. Zimmerman's first shot, combined with the resulting "furor" and weather that was even colder, more bitter and angrier than the Detroit bashing that occurred that week, all made folks here wonder if we'd ever get another Super Bowl.

There should be no such concerns this time. I didn't make it downtown for anything other than the Media Party last Tuesday at the Fox Theatre, but my intrepid colleague at MCS Magazine -- Josh Bartlett -- sure did, and his reports on how the city dolled itself up and the happenings on the street should be read at his blog. Another MCSer, EJ Smith, has some nice thoughts about Detroit's performance as a host as well. And I must say that the city looked splendid when I was down there. I had the opportunity to see most of it, trying to navigate our way to the Fox's parking garage.

Green also told me that, fair or not, how the media perceives a city and its hosting efforts go a long way toward determining whether that city is worthy of another try. Beyond the perfunctory "Detroit has been a great host" comments that are almost obligatory on the TV airwaves, it is what you don't hear that should put a smile on every Detroiter's face this week. You didn't hear about crime. You didn't hear about abandoned buildings. You didn't hear about the cold, snowy weather. You didn't hear that there was "nothing to do." Were those things talked about? Certainly. But the fact that they didn't bob up to the surface -- in this day and age of Internet vitriol -- leads me to believe that those comments were either few and far between or not uttered by anyone of any significance.

The game itself -- Super Bowl XL -- is getting some heat because of some questionable decisions made by officials on the field. For us Detroiters, that's exactly the kind of heat that is desired at this point. Keep it aimed at the game, not the city in which it was played.