Brian Hieggelke

Super Bowl Baby

January 12, 1969: Inside the house, my mom and grad-student dad were hosting their first and only Super Bowl Party, while Joe Namath was making history with his upstart Jets. A 6-year-old just discovering the wonders of pro football, I skipped the game to play with my sled on the hills in the back of our Nebraska yard.

Sometime around halftime, I suppose, I lost control and stopped a long sled run with my forehead on a rusty spiked bicycle track cog. I crashed the party with my forehead split open, blood streaming down my face, seven stitches to come. My parents missed the Namath miracle, but I never missed another Super Bowl.

In 1985, I was caught up in Bears hysteria along with everyone else. But I had my own distraction: I'd convinced my wife and brother--all of us in or barely out of college--that we should start a newspaper, and do so in a couple of months. I don't think I missed a game, but I don't think I watched one away from my old one-meg Macintosh, with its crazy new desktop-publishing software. Not to worry, I thought. This team is so dominant that we'll have several more Super Bowls to watch. And we can start a newspaper with no publishing experience. Ah, youth. The first issue of Newcity went to press the same week that we celebrated the Super Bowl victory in the streets with a ticker-tape parade through the Loop.

Bear of a Life
Growing up after 1985

The Big Hurt
What If a Bears Fan Moved Away?

These City Streets
January 26, 1986: Zero Day

The Big Bowl Bash
Where to Watch the Game

Bears Banter
Facts and Tidbits about Bears History

(2007-01-30)

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