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Just when I thought the beginning of 2015 couldn’t get any more exciting with Rick’s Buckeyes winning the National Championship, my NFL team won the AFC Championship — their ticket to the Super Bowl and I got a job!! I joined the Rio & Reyes Show, an internet radio broadcast out of San Antonio.

Unfortunately with the wonderful news of my New England Patriots going to the Super Bowl, came the doubt of their right to be there. DeflateGate would take the wind out of my sails and made me wonder if anyone with the Patriots organization was responsible for altering the approved footballs. Now I am the type who likes to understand both sides of a story before making judgment. (That’s probably why I was chosen for several juries and was foreperson of two.) Many of my friends were immediately jumping to conclusions about the “cheaters” and so ready to assume guilt before any evidence was presented. I kept the faith that the proper person (s) who did the act would be found and punished. And why assume that it was someone with the Patriots who did it? The Seahawks had just as much to benefit with this huge distraction for New England. Instead of having time to mentally prepare for the game, Coach Belichick and Tom Brady’s spare time off the field was dealing with repetitive DeflateGate questions by the paparazzi. Surprisingly, the NFL and the players from both teams as well others in football were not as obsessed with DeflateGate as the fans and the media.

The day of the Super Bowl, I went through my ritual of the lucky clothes I had been wearing each of their playoff games.   You laugh, but retracing my steps back to the first playoff game with Baltimore, as my nephew Bret can attest, any wrong piece can affect the game. It was only after I discovered I had the wrong hair band in my ponytail and changed it to the one I wore the last game they won, New England took the lead and kept it! I know…. it drives Rick crazy. Super Bowl coverage started at 10AM our time and the game wasn’t even until 5:30PM. On our island, I had everything imaginable for food grazing. The crock pots housed Rick’s sausage beer cheese and beanie weenies.   I even had a silver cake pan in the shape of a helmet full of Fuzzy’s chips with hot seasoning. There was nothing nutritious to be consumed in sight. After all, it was Super Bowl Sunday.

I have watched the Super Bowl every year since the first year at Los Angeles between the Packers and the Chiefs. Back when I was flying; I used to bid garbage the month of the playoffs and the big game just to have those games off. I was a football fanatic long before the internet site!! Of all the Super Bowls, this was probably one of the best — the final minutes of the game with more twists and turns than my favorite TV show, Castle.   With 2:02 left, Julian Edelman, with his superstitious full beard, caught the go-ahead touchdown and the Patriots were finally leading after being down by ten points. The kickoff was a touchback so there was no runback. Marshawn Lynch, who had been slowed down on previous possessions, exploded down the field for thirty-one yards!   Two incomplete passes followed by a short pass. 1:14 left. Wilson goes back to the left and throws to the right. Tom Brady and I watched in horror as Seattle receiver Jermaine Kearse juggled the ball several times and fell on the one yard line! By now I was one foot from the TV as I went with the ball. “NO!! NO!! NO!!” I sit back down on the couch in disbelief as it appeared to be a repeat of the Super Bowl XLII loss against the NY Giants. The next play equaled “the shot heard round the world” in the Revolutionary War. Wilson did the unconventional (Pete Carroll’s middle name) and went back to pass….. on first and goal… and it is intercepted by Malcom Butler, a pretty much unknown cornerback for New England. He came out of no-where! Brady still had to get the ball out of the end zone and it got dicey until a Seahawk got flagged for encroachment. Patriots won 28-24.

Meanwhile, I was getting to talk about all this through my new job doing sports on internet radio. The start was challenging though for the first couple of weeks. Keep in mind — this was taking a person who rarely went to bed before 1:30AM and converting them to someone who had to get up by 6:00AM. I actually could have slept in longer, but I needed time to shower as the heat loosens my vocal cords, get the green tea caffeine flowing in my system and throw some make-up on. After all, although the public couldn’t see me, my co-workers could!   Unlike my monthly column, hours of preparation the night before each show was needed to ensure I had something to report. Next was the hardest part. I had to leave my nightly Spades games on the internet by 11PM to ensure I was asleep by midnight. It took me a couple of weeks to synchronize my life style, but all is well. I am even waking up before my two alarms and having so much fun every morning!! I just love a happy ending… don’t you?