Column:

Super Bowl pros play with heart too

Love for college sports need not take away from admiration of the pros.

By Mark Levitt

Published Feb. 5, 2009

College sports stand for school spirit. They stand for sportsmanship. They stand for marching bands and immature student chants. In NCAA athletics, as opposed to the professional ranks, we watch student-athletes compete more for the name on the front of their jerseys than the one on the back.

Because of all that and more, I tend to prefer college sports to their professional counterparts. I would rather Missouri win the BCS Championship than my favorite NFL team (unfortunately the Rams) win the Super Bowl. I'd rather the Tigers make it to the Final Four than watch my NBA team of choice (the Bulls) advance to the NBA Finals.

That said, the biggest sporting event of the year remains and will continue to remain the Super Bowl. Yet as 5 p.m. approached last Sunday, I seemed to care about the game as much as "Lazy Leo" cares about basketball (Lyons' split personality, "Light It Up Leo", did just that with 30 points Saturday against Baylor). I don't particularly like the Steelers or the Cardinals, and the Rams gave me little reason to follow the NFL throughout much of the 2008-2009 campaign.

But the Super Bowl is still the Super Bowl. I refused to not enjoy the unofficial national holiday for sports fans. Who cares if the game wouldn't be appealing? Between friends and chips and dip and commercials and Bruce Springsteen, (who made Prince look more like a henchman) I would get something out of this year's festivities.

I received more than anybody could have asked for. I rediscovered the beauty of professional sports.

Somewhere in between my first sandwich and the final snap, the football game pushed its way through the billion-dollar extravaganza into the spotlight. The Cardinals and Steelers put on a show that I will remember for a long time.

While professional athletes might be more selfish, be paid obscene amounts and have longer criminal records than the average collegiate competitor, they also have something most of the school boys do not -- a level of ability that 99.9 percent of the world can only dream about. I say this with the utmost respect: These people are freaks of nature.

The catches Larry Fitzgerald made in the fourth quarter could only have been topped by the Santonio Holmes' catch to win the game. The defensive prowess of Arizona cornerback Dominique-Rodgers Cromartie was only outdone by a game-changing, Super Bowl record, 100-yard interception return by Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison. Harrison was a 242-pound joystick, juking and jiving like we here in Columbia are used to seeing Jeremy Maclin do against inferior opponents. Wow.

These people, if you can call them that, are capable of physical feats unfathomable unless seen with our own eyes. We watch NCAA sports because we like to see people play with their hearts. We watch professional sports because those athletes' hearts are surrounded by so much muscle and skill that it is impossible not to watch them with awe.

This observation is hardly limited to the NFL. The best athletes in the world are arguably in the NBA. Basketball players mix a combination of agility, quickness and strength to form a special specimen.

I never intended to imply that collegiate athletes play with heart and the pros do not. The Steelers did an admirable job representing the city of Pittsburgh Sunday, just like Chase Daniel and Gary Pinkel continually competed for their university. This year's Super Bowl simply reminded me that there is room in my heart for both levels of sport.