Tuesday, February 3rd
We woke up in Texas this morning which is no surprise, when you cross Texas on I10 you are going to either wake up or go to sleep in Texas. It takes forever to get through! But what you do get when you pass through Texas on I10 during the day or evening is a stop at Chuy's restaurant in Van Horn. It is one of the all time favorite stops of the cruiser through the years and it has been a few years since we have timed it right to stop. One thing was missing this trip.  Papa Chuy and Mama Chuy were in a fatal accident in 2008 and Papa Chuy is no longer with us. As great as the stop still is it just wasn't the same without Papa Chuy there to greet us. After a late lunch we kept on rolling through the rest of Texas. 

This trip is always kind of a bitter sweet trip. The season is a long time to be away from home week in and week out, but this is what we do and when the season winds down and you take a long ride home you have time to reflect on the past six months and revisit the good times and the even better times. As much as this one isn't really over just yet you can't help but start thinking about the next one.

Monday, February 2nd
The cruiser pulled out of Tampa this morning about 11:30 to head home for the offseason. As you can imagine it was a fairly quiet day watching a bunch of highlights and telling stories of the week and Super Bowl weeks of the past. We stopped for dinner in Pensacola, Florida at Sonny's Bar-B-Que before hitting the road again and then hitting the rack. 

Sunday, February 1st
The Cruiser left the hotel around 1:15 for the stadium which was a little bit early but because security was so tight at the stadium we had to have the cruiser inside the perimeter before 2:00. Needless to say when we got there we had plenty of time to go out to the field and soak up the whole scene. 

The ball finally kicked off at 6:29 and what followed was one of the best Super Bowls ever played. It is so much fun to be part of something that is so big and so special. Everyone who was involved should be honored to have been a part of it!

After the game we hung around and talked to all the crew guys for a couple hours before heading back to the hotel and hanging out there with some more of the crew and then heading to bed.

Saturday, January 31st
Man you can really feel the excitement continuing to build and start to come to a head. This morning Coach and his crew took the cruiser back to the Buccaneers facility for one last walkthrough with the Cardinals and final meetings with Kurt Warner and Coach Whisenhunt and I rode out to the University of South Florida to attend the Steelers last walkthrough and then back to the hotel for final conference calls with Ben Roethilsberger and Coach Tomlin. The last time we had a final conference call with Ben on the Saturday before the Super Bowl Ben came on the phone and only heard screaming and yelling. We were in Detroit and at the moment he came on the call it was announced that Coach would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

After the calls we had a few hours before the editorial meeting and graphics and preproduced pieces were shown and then off to bed we went to get a good nights sleep before our big day on Sunday.

Friday, January 30th
Friday was busy in a different way for Coach. He had a bunch of radio commitments this morning starting with KCBS and then onto Sirius with Adam Schein and then a few others before the cruiser departed for its first visit to the stadium for rehearsals and walkthroughs. This is when Coach Robinson and I got put through our paces with our high school team. Everything went very smoothly and Coach Robinson's hard work really paid off. That was one of the highlights of the week getting to watch him coach and guide those young men on the field where just 48 hours later the Super Bowl was going to be played! 

After we were finished we met Coach and a big group of folks down in the meeting room for dinner and then another film session before going to bed.

Thursday, January 29th
Today was our day with the Cardinals at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers facility. Shortly after we arrived Coach and the crew went in to visit with Coach Whisenhunt and a few of the players before practice. At 1:00 practice started, the stretching and warming up took a little longer than most, of course the lingering black clouds over head probably made it feel like longer than it was. And as soon as they started the real practice the clouds opened up. It didn't disrupt practice at all other than a few guys losing their footing and then Rod Hood went down hard and hobbled off. After getting looked at he came back on the field and finished practice and shortly after he returned the pads came off and practice continued with just shells. 

After practice the crew still had a few meetings with players and coordinators and then the cruiser took us back to our hotel where we all gathered again in our meeting room for dinner and film before calling it a night.

Wednesday, January 28th
Things really started to heat up today. The first practice of Super Bowl week was today. We were scheduled with the Steelers all day at the University of South Florida. After a full day with the Steelers the cruiser took us back to our hotel. After a short nap Coach, Coach Robinson and Audrey met back down in the film room for some room service and to watch some specialty "cut ups" that Coach Robinson put together. I was the first person down to the film room, Matt Millen was hanging out waiting to go to dinner and Coach rang me to ask who was meeting us and asked specifically about Matt.  He knew Matt had plans that he was tied to and really started giving his crap. "Tell him I would really like to have dinner and watch film with him", and to know Matt he is one of those guys that loves watching film and would 100 times over rather sit in a room like we were going to have than go to a stuffy restaurant and have a dining experience. 

So after film Matt and Coach Holmgren come walking in and boy oh boy did the feathers begin to fly! No one was immune to the shots that were being fired! It was one of those sessions that you could go your entire lifetime and not experience anything like that.

Just one of the stories Coach Holmgren told was his Super Bowl in San Diego with the Green Bay Packers.  He always tells his players that because the pregame is so long for the Super Bowl to go out find their wives in the crowd and soak up the atmosphere because it is so special. So he says the Super Bowl that he won with the Packers he kind of forgot that so he was determined to do it this time. He is standing in the middle of the field looking around and he begins to kind of think,Hey I am the Coach of the Green Bay Packers getting ready to play in the Super Bowl. I am a pretty important guy and all of the sudden they begin to unhurl the flag on the field and one of those guys in a yellow jacket yells, "Hey get your big butt out of the way so we can get this flag out on the field". He says I guess maybe I wasn't as important as I was thinking I might be! A few more stories just like that one followed and then off to our rooms we went.

Tuesday, January 27th
Tuesday began to get a little busier with film again at 10:00 and then Coach, Al, Andrea, Alex Flanagan, Fred and Drew had a press call and press conference at the media center. I did not join them. Coach Robinson and I were assigned to a local high school football team to get them ready for a rehearsal. This is a tradition that Coach Madden started many years ago where we arranged for a local high school team to be rewarded for their season by coming on Super Bowl Friday to the stadium and simulating plays from each of the teams in order for the network television cameras to get used to what we think they will see. 

After our practice everyone came back to the hotel and dinner was in the hotel restaurant with the usual suspects and Audrey Mansfield and Ray Stein. Dinner of course was followed by a lobby hang and then up to our rooms.

Monday, January 26th
Film for the entire group started this morning at 10:00. We had a special guest stop by as Marcus Allen made an appearance. It is funny how I sometimes just end up in a room with multiple Hall of Famers! 

The rest of the day was pretty quiet with a couple meetings and then some more film with Coach and Coach Robinson.

Sunday, January 25th
Sunday started with breakfast for Coach and I and then up to our meeting room to begin watching film. On our way to the elevator there was a gentleman in a wheel chair talking to the folks at the hospitality table and Coach goes up and grabs his chair and begins to pull him away from the table. The Gentleman says something like, "I don't know who it is but he better be big!". It was Mike Utley, the Detroit Lion who was paralyzed during an NFL game. Coach spoke to him for a few minutes and then we went up to get started on our week's work.

Coach Robinson joined us and we started working our way backward beginning with the Championship games. After film Coach went up to catch a nap before we went to dinner a little later in the evening. 

Dinner was at Lee Roy Selmon's with a great group. It was Dick, his assistant Aimee Leone, Fred, Drew, Coach, Coach Robinson, Vinny myself and one of Coach's favorite people, Matt Millen, who is working on Football Night in America. What a great place for dinner. They were able to set us up in a private room and the chef just started sending out samples of everything on the menu, to the point that when it came time to order nobody at the adult end of the table ordered anything other than a dinner salad. Vinny and I were the only guys that ordered a meal! Along the way while we were ordering the waitress gets to Coach and he can't decide if he wants a meal or just a salad. I guess she thought he was taking too long to make up his mind so she told him he was just going to have a salad and ordered his dressing for him. It was so funny because you knew then that would come back up during the course of the night. As the salads hit the table Coach says something like, "where is my meal, I didn't get a meal, I thought I came here to eat?" The waitress just fires right back at him and the games really began to heat up. A great meal that ended with every desert on the menu passed around the table.

Saturday, January 24th
The cruiser hit Tampa at 10:30 this morning. Coach and I got settled into the hotel and met to grab some food in the hotel restaurant with Vinny Rao. A lobby hang followed before the rest of the crew arrived a few hours later. For dinner Coach and the crew went around the corner to Fleming's for a nice steak to get the week started on the right foot. Shortly after we ordered Coach Robinson landed and joined us in progress. He called in his order which of course was placed after everyone else's order therefore you know he is going to be givin a hard time about something regarding the food. Of course the food hits the table just as Coach Robinson hits the table and the ribbing began.

After dinner Coach, Coach Robinson and I hung out in the lobby for a little while talking about the two teams and the week and then called it a night.

Friday, January 23rd
Departure from Dallas was about 3:45, destination Tampa. Along the way we watched some more of the playoffs for both teams and then hit the rack about 11:00.

Thursday, January 22nd
Coach started his day with his KCBS radio show. We started looking for a place to have breakfast as soon as he was done and were not successful until we found a Mexican joint in Big Springs, about an hour and half later. There just isn't much out here for miles and miles. After lunch we started watching the television tape of the Cardinals Wild Card win over the Falcons and then it was time for a nap before we got to Dallas where we would be staying for the night to break up the trip.

After we got settled at the hotel Coach met Rich Dalrymple, the Cowboys P.R. Director, at Via Real for a little tex-mex and then off to get a good night's sleep before finishing the trip to Tampa Friday afternoon. 

Wednesday, January 21st
The perverbial road to Super Bowl XLIII started in late July when we took off for Canton Ohio and the Hall of Fame Game, but today started our literal road to the Super Bowl. The Outback Madden Cruiser pulled out of the Bay Area at 11:00 a.m. On board were Coach, J.J., Joe and myself along with a Honey Baked Ham and some Popeyes chicken. 

Because we left so early there isn't much urgency to start watching tapes, so we watched the NFL Network and some of their replays of playoff games. 

Thursday, January 1st
Coach and the crew got to the Chargers facility just before practice started at 11:00, so we went out to watch. Neither LaDainian Tomlinson or Antonio Gates were out at practice so of course that is a real concern for the Chargers. After practice the crew met with the coaches and a few players.

Film started a little before 3:30 and then of course... Coach, Fred, Drew and I had dinner in the hotel lobby followed by a lobby hang and off to our respective rooms we went.