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A Steel Brush With Greatness, From Garage Level 9

The Associated Press

Ben Roethlisberger, left, shoots some video of Brett Keisel as they arrive at the Tampa International Airport.

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 26, 2009

Updated: 01/26/2009 09:59 pm

TAMPA - I'm Martin. Fly me.

No matter what happens this week, and a lot will, and a lot won't, remember that Super Bowl XLIII began here.

It began on a patch of sun-burned tarmac at mine and yours favorite airport, the greatest airport in the history of airports. It started here, at America's Airport: TIA.

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals arrived Monday, three hours apart. They pulled up to the photo-ops tent _ no questions, please _ and got off.

The ground crew guy with the orange batons who guided the Steelers US Airways charter traded in one baton for a Terrible Towel and waved it. When Arizona's flight, a Northwest charter, came to a stop in the City Of Light, the Northwest pilot poked a large Red Bird flag out a cockpit window.

Through it all, I kept thinking:

"We want Sully! We want Sully!"

You know who I'm talking about _ that rakish US Airways legend, the old silver-haired barnstormer himself, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, who a few weeks back only saved 155 necks with his damn near perfect water landing in New York's Hudson River. Nonstop. Snack.

I have no idea why someone very high up in the NFL didn't hit on the idea of Sully flying in both teams for a spectacular Tampa Bay ditching and deplaning. I get excited just thinking about the two best teams in football standing on the wings as the Gasparilla flotilla makes its way out to throw coins at them while both teams lift up their shirts and ask for beads. Tell me there wouldn't be thousands of fans lining the bay for those babies. Tell me that isn't the only way to start a Super Bowl.

Sully today, Sully tomorrow, Sully forever.

Instead, two planes pulled up, guys got off, buses drove off.

Actually it wasn't bad.

Let's not forget that it extended to XLIII the streak of both teams showing up. The Super Bowl never gets any credit for that. We take so much for granted in this country, so very much.

Also, this was my first time covering an airport arrival. I stood on the tarmac, Chesley B. Reporter, waiting for the Cardinals flight. I thought about other great arrivals in aviation history: Orville Wright touching down at Kitty Hawk, Lindbergh under the lights at Le Bourget, our hostages back from Iran. Then there are bad arrivals, Amerlia Earhart, to name one. Of course, wouldn't you know it, her bags made it.

I waited under the big white tent, up close and personal, with a clutch of photographers, as well as Super Bowl bus drivers who kept taking pictures of each other, and everyone from the airport who had a badge, even if they had no business there except to gawk. In case you were inbound Monday, and had to circle, it was because the boys from the control tower were with me. Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full. There were also assorted NFL types and Tampa Host Committee types and, I almost forgot, Dave and Roger.

Yes, along with snacks and beverages , there was the music of "Dave and Roger," who set up their sound system near some airport security fencing and laid on with the media entertainment. That's right, plane arrival media entertainment. The Super Bowl thinks of everything. Good God, it scares me sometimes.

Dave is Dave Meholic, who was strumming his six string at a Tiki bar several years ago when a stranger named Roger Matson got on stage and started singing with them. And the rest is aviation musical history. Did Simon and Garfunkel ever do an airport?

"This is our strangest gig," said Dave, who with Roger did Buffet, James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg and "The Ballad of the Green Berets," among others, easy listening, The Dove, before the trillion-horsepower jet whine of 757s ended their sets. We're here every Super Bowl, folks, don't forget to tip your flight attendants.

The arrivals went off fairly well. Arizona's flight had only one disturbance. Somewhere over Texas, Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin asked the crew why he wasn't flying the plane. Words were exchanged. Later, on the ground, Boldin, the pilot and co-pilot laughed it off and called it a "non-issue."

When the plane door opened, Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill stepped out waving the Lombardi Trophy. A league official whispered to him that it's only if he wins. Bidwill looked around for the intern. Somebody done screwed up.

Then there was the Steelers player hustled away for having more than 3 ounces of liquid in the bottle in his quart-sized clear plastic bag. Ever get the feeling that somewhere there's a TSA honcho sitting naked in his bathroom with 300 tiny bottles of Drakkar Noir? You are all my children.

I cannot be sure about that last Steelers story, because, unlike with the Cardinals, I saw the Steelers arrive from a distance, namely from the roof-top parking of the TIA sort-term parking garage, or, as we TIA regulars and elevator honks call it, "Level 9."

I was standing on Level 9 with David Chamberlain of the Tampa Steelers Fan Chamberlains. He had been on the roof for more than an hour. Chamberlain, 30 and a Pittsburgh native, wore his black and gold No. 7 Ben Roethlisberger jersey pulled tightly over his stocky, lifts-weights bod. He wore a gold chain with the Steelers emblem on it. His right arm carried a tattoo of an American flag and his pet bulldog, Sergeant.

At his side was his faithful girlfriend, Cheryl, armed a digital camera. They don't have tickets to Super Bowl XLIII. "Couldn't afford them anyway," David said. No, this their Super Bowl. They're sweet kids. They're what this game is all about, this country, too.

Chamberlain used a sick day from his shipping and receiving job at Florida Seal and Rubber to meet his Steelers. It went something like this.

David: "I'm taking off to go meet the Steelers at the airport."

Boss: "I don't care."

I ask you, who wouldn't want to work for Florida Seal and Rubber?

Let's back up a little bit.

"Meet his Steelers" is a little deceiving.

David and Cheryl (she also took a day off, "but my boss doesn't know why") stood several football fields away from the X marks the spot of the Pittsburgh arrival.

It didn't matter.

"I came to see the Steelers," David said.

He tried bribing an airport employee to get him closer. He'd do anything for Super Bowl tickets.

"I'd run through the airport terminal butt naked with a 'Go' and a 'Steelers' on each cheek," said David.

You had me at "airport terminal."

"Somebody told me they already landed," Cheryl said. "I think maybe they're trying to throw us off."

They began walking around the roof-top lot for some sign of hope. Then they saw the tent and the row of buses and police motorcycles, all of them waiting, too. Dave and Cheryl looked at each other. Waves crashed. They weren't too late.

We stood and searched the skies. We watched all those other meaningless flights rolled into town in all their miserable Stuffed like the last chopper out of Saigon, We don't have any more blankets, No, we can't give you the entire can Glory.

But where were the Steelers?

Once at the Tampa airport, David met, by accident, Big Show, the WWE wrestler.

"But this is the Steelers."

Meet the real Super Bowl fans, folks, the ones you don't see at the parties.

David has Steelers and stickers all over his F-150, only he can't drive it this week.

"It has a lift on it, and the guy he bought it from screwed it up, so its like sideways, and we haven't been able to fix it right now," Cheryl said.

They kept staring at the white tent. It was 11:30. Where were the hell were they?

They realized they had company.

Her name was Kendra Ferreira, 19, a student from HCC. She stood, watching and waiting, wearing a No. 21 Arizona Cardinals jersey for Antrel Rolle. Kendra was informed that the Cardinals plane did not arrive until mid-afternoon.

"I'll just stay for the Steelers then," Kendra said.

She doesn't even like the Cardinals, really.

"I'm from Plymouth, Mass," she said. "I'm huge Patriots. I just hate the Steelers so much I'm pulling for the Cardinals."

Natalie Madar, "as in Radar," showed up. She works nights. She wore her Troy Polamalu Steelers road jersey, white and gold, and held her yellow Steelers Terrible Towel. She grew up near Pittsburgh, too.

Sonja Kahkonen, a Pittsburgh transplant, showed up and leaned over the concrete wall with everyone else. She wore a Steelers shirt. Most of her other Steelers stuff is in storage. Has been for two years.

"I didn't expect to stay," Sonja said.

Um, is the plane here yet?

And then …

At 11:31 a.m., Super Bowl Standard Time, the great white bird, US Airways from Pittsburgh (we do not believe they changed planes in Charlotte, or boarded by zones) glided onto the concrete.

Cheryl readied her camera. Never mind the distance. Never mind that David Chamberlain couldn't see any faces. Lee Harvey Chamberlain couldn't have seen them from this far. Who cared? "Here they come," David said.

The plane taxied to a stop. There was a flurry of activity. A staircase was rushed to the aircraft's front door. It opened.

Was that Mike Tomlin? Or was it Dan Rooney? Who could tell?

David screamed, "Go Steelers." Cheryl screamed, too. Natalie Madar as in radar waved her towel.

In a few minutes, it was over. The motorcycles pulled out, leading the Steelers buses away. What a morning.

David had an idea.

"Let's follow the buses!"

And so it begins.

Later, at 2:31, the Cardinals touched down. Dave and Roger were singing John Cougar's "Ain't that America" as the Cardinals headed for the buses. I spotted Arizona wonder receiver Larry Fitzgerald impeccably dreadlocked and impeccably dressed and pulling so much Louis Vuitton luggage that I figured Louis' body had to be stuffed in one.

Then, belching bus exhaust, the buses were gone. Just like that, it was off to Super Bowl XLIII. They are honored guests. Heck, the TSA guys didn't even make them take their shoes off. Soon the big white photo-ops tent was empty. We'd laughed, we'd cried, we'd asked Dave and Roger to play "Margaritaville " one more time. I looked up and saw, in the distance, some diehards up on Level 9, waving at the Cardinals.

Let's follow the buses.

Ain't that America?

Still should have got Sully.

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