Garret Leiva: Electrifying Super Bowl

Columns

Related Photos

Garret Leiva

January 30, 2012

By Garret Leiva Community editor The Record Eagle Mon Jan 30, 2012, 07:18 AM EST

With millions watching and TV commercials costing $3.5 million per 30 seconds, the Super Bowl is an electrifying event.

Fans in NFL jerseys and power-suit ad executives will all be abuzz Sunday over the Roman numeral spectacle Super Bowl XLVI. I hope to score the electrical outlet plug-in version.

The Super Bowl is ostentatiousness in high-definition color. After all, what single event could bring together Madonna and 1.25 billion chicken wings — and that's merely the halftime entertainment. Fans will pay $200 just to park at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; a ticket to get inside takes much deeper pockets.

Sparks are sure to fly as the New England Patriots and New York Giants square off in a Super Bowl rematch. However, I don't care who wins. I'm looking to bring one good vibration to our friends' Super Bowl party: electric football.

As a kid, "Mean Joe" Green and Roger Staubach embodied NFL superstars. Online fantasy football leagues and ultra-real gridiron video games didn't exist in this analog world. Electric football was true plug-and-play technology.

First manufactured by Tudor Games in 1947, tabletop electric football was crude by today's Xbox 360 standards. It didn't run on 3.2 gigahertz, just an on/off switch. There was something melodic about the game's metallic hum, even if it did drown out your 8-track player.

While not AstroTurf, the electric football field was fake: plastic players, cut-out stands and painted-on crowds. However watching your halfback with the ball spin around and run into the wrong end zone — that pain is real.

Unlike quarterback audibles, electric football is easy to follow. First you line up the two teams. Next you hit a switch that turns on an electric motor under the metal field. Then you helplessly watch chaos ensue — like Peyton Manning in street clothes.

No matter how you drew it up on the sidelines, it was the same on-field electric football reality: Linemen block field goal post, wide receivers spin in circles and running backs buzz in place. St. Louis Rams fans call that a positive play from scrimmage.

You could barely get your E.F. team to run in the right direction. Only the most brazen coach would attempt the forward pass. However, the electric Triple Threat Quarterback had a cannon for an arm. Unfortunately, he had Civil War cannon accuracy. The flung felt football was more likely to sail into the shag carpet than land anywhere near an intended receiver.

Electric football gave no insight into 4-3 defense, but it did teach us about disappointment. It dawned on us that we're all tiny linemen banging our heads against an immovable object, forever subject to the whims of the electric motor of life.

Not surprisingly, every electric football Super Bowl ended on the same play — crank up the speed control dial and turn Lambeau Field into a mosh pit. Even a few plastic Army men ended up on the 50-yard line, shaking their bazooka.

Of course the televised Super Bowls rarely reach that level of on-field electricity. Although if I get my hands on a plug-in tabletop version, I might be abuzz for days.