My Super Bowl XLVII

Posted by Victor Dela Casa

These Niners are SUPER!

This is going to be a great SuperBowl. The excitement, the drama, the fact that brother are going to fight it out for football’s ultimate price – no, not Peyton and Eli – but John and Jim Harbaugh – has me all a-buzz.

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Last year, prior to the start of the season, I twitted Mike Mayock that I feel the Niners are going to win it all. I hope I’m right.

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Unfortunately, I’m in the Philippines and this will be the first time I’m missing my favorite event every February since 2001.

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One thing I will surely miss is the SuperBowl ads. I’m already seeing some previews over the net and on youtube but being there watching it all on a big screen TV…boy, oh boy.

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I’m also going to miss friends who I watched the SuperBowl with. I’ll miss Erin’s steaks and nachos, and Bob’s Coronas, and Luke’s poached samen, and Mum Ellen just being everyone’s caring and sympathetic mommy.

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As a Niners’ fan, it’s unfortunate that after years of wanting to see them win one live on TV, I have the unfortunate reality of leaving when it finally came to happen. I did saw the last one live in 1994, but I’m greedy.

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I feel for Alex Smith. After years of suffering and having terrible coaches he finally gets a good one and ends up as a spectator. Such is football life. Smith is good and he can be better. I'm sure the bills will be looking at him this off season. You gotta hand it to Colin Kaepernick. He did a mighty awesome job this year.

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I’ll miss the Patriots. Since moving East to Nova Scotia, Canada, I’ve witnessed the Pats’ road to glory. I saw Brady’s first pre-season game and predicted he will replace Bledsoe some time in 2001. Not only did he replace him, he won New England’s first Super Bowl.

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I’m not only rooting for the Niners because I love them but I want to get Randy Moss a championship. He almost got in 2007 with the Pats so I’m really hoping he gets it this time around. Despite all those character issues, Moss is undoubtedly one of the greatest wide outs the league has ever witnessed. As much I also want Ray Lewis to retire with one, I’ll give this one to Moss, after all, Lewis won it in 2000.

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Yes, I’ll be watching it all at work on my work PC. I don’t know how that’s going to work out but please God I hope it works out.

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Here are some articles I want to share about the Super Bowl from the netz.

San Francisco 49ers had incredible 2007 draft class

(From NFL.com)

The 2011 San Francisco 49ers were hardly your average rebuilding project. Coach Jim Harbaugh took over an expletive-free team stocked with talent, the result of underrated drafting during the era of general manager Scot McCloughan and coach Mike Nolan.

As Albert Breer pointed out, 15 of the 49ers' 22 starters predated Harbaugh's arrival. The new regime deserves credit for blowing up the roster that McCloughan largely built. His 2007 draft haul standing out as particularly ridiculous:

» First round: Patrick Willis, linebacker
» First round: Joe Staley, tackle
» Third round: Ray McDonald, defensive end
» Fourth round: Dashon Goldson, safety
» Fifth round: Tarell Brown, cornerback

That's five Super Bowl starters in one draft. Willis has the chance to be an all-time great. Staley and Goldson have made Pro Bowls. McDonald is a very underrated piece of the team's defensive line, and Brown starts on the outside at cornerback. It often takes years to find that much draft talent.

McCloughan didn't only make great draft moves. Justin Smith and Ahmad Brooks were picked up for extremely good values in 2008 as free agents (Smith with such a big deal that he was still a bargain in retrospect; Brooks was picked up off the scrap heap).

The 49ers are relatively new to the national stage, but it's a veteran team with continuity in many ways. Frank Gore and Vernon Davis are among 13 players who've been on the Niners for at least six seasons.
Of course, the 49ers wouldn't have made it this far if not for Harbaugh's coaching and the excellent work of McCloughan's replacement at general manager, Trent Baalke.

The team's 2011 class includes Aldon Smith, Colin Kaepernick, slot cornerback Chris Culliver, running back Kendall Hunter, and fullback Bruce Miller. That class might already rival or exceed the excellent 2007 crop.

This is a 49ers team that is built to last.

Jim Harbaugh helped a female reporter get equal access to locker room when he played for Bears

(Yahoo Sports)

San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh's media sessions aren't known as the most friendly affairs, which is fine. However, that does make what Harbaugh did for one female reporter many years ago even more remarkable.

In a blog entry on WBEZ.org, Chicago radio reporter Cheryl Raye-Stout shared a story from many years ago about the time Bears quarterback Jim Harbaugh fought for her to get equal access to the Bears locker room during the week, something she hadn't been granted during a time when many women were battling for that right.

Raye-Stout writes that she started covering Bears games in 1985, and getting access to the locker room after games wasn't a big issue because the media crowds were huge and she could blend in. When the 1986 season came around and she tried going in the Bears' locker room during the week, she wrote, she could be easily singled out in a smaller crowd. Her first time going into the locker room she heard "angry, hurtful words and loud obnoxious screams" directed her way, and the Bears' PR representative told her she couldn't have access to the locker room and had to leave. Nobody stood up for her, Raye-Stout wrote, and she sat outside the locker room hoping for players to come out and stop and talk to her there for the rest of the season. That's far from ideal for any reporter and most of all, very unfair.

When Harbaugh arrived in 1987, the rookie quarterback was finally the one to see how unfair the situation was, and he stood up for her. Here's what Raye-Stout wrote, recalling a time she requested to interview Harbaugh outside the locker room:

The media person went into the locker room and brought the rookie out for me. Jim looked at me and then said to the media person, “Why can’t she go in the locker room like she does after games?”
He wasn't kidding. Jim had the firm look he shows now as San Francisco's coach. There was no answer that would be satisfactory to Harbaugh. There was more to the conversation, but for me, his first words were the most relevant.
Until that point, no one else had even challenged or really cared about my situation. Jim and I talked, and we walked into the locker room. There were no angry voices, there were no insults. (Now there was no red carpet or rose petals thrown either.) At times there were some other incidents, but this was a huge change at Halas Hall.

Even if you're not the biggest fan of Harbaugh and his demeanor, make sure that story is part of your image of the 49ers coach. That's a gesture that Raye-Stout said changed a very tough situation for her.
"Next Sunday I will take off my reporter’s hat and become a fan and root for the Niners," Raye-Stout wrote. "All female sports reporters should too."