I get asked to speak to civic and business groups four or five times a month and over the past year I've been talking about Jacksonville hosting the Super Bowl. I've told every body to prepare themselves to be "ripped" by the media visiting the week of the game.

"If they're going to call Houston "Yahooville" imagine what they'll do to us," is a line that usually gets a pretty big laugh. But even I've been surprised by how vicious the attacks have been on the city. There's not a single thing some writer somewhere hasn't complained about.

Pete Prisco of CBS Sportsline explained part of it this week writing about the writers saying, "Buy them a steak and they'll complain it's too tough. Take them out for free golf and they'll complain it's not Pebble Beach."

One national writer summed up his thoughts by saying, "Things good about Jacksonville: The People. Things bad about Jacksonville: Everything else."

And one from New England devoted his entire column on how bad Alltel Stadium is for players and fans. I've said all along that sports writers as a group are miserable people whose personality draws them to that profession. They're looking for the negative in every situation. There are exceptions, and they're the one's that usually rise to the top, so you already know their names.

Maybe it's the easy story of the week, or maybe they're all just miserable. It has been somewhat ironic that our worst weather week of the year would fall on the seven days leading up to the Super Bowl. Cold and rainy isn't fun anywhere, and especially not fun when you've brought your golf clubs expecting to play, for free. More than that though, this Super Bowl is different from others, and that seems to have thrown many of the early week "journalists" for a loop.

The weather is supposed to change and most of the visitors for the Super Bowl start showing up Thursday night anyway. It's obvious the owners don't want to have a permanent home for the game, and they don't want to just take it to vacation destination, warm weather sites.

Jacksonville's main competition for Super Bowl XXXIX was Miami because being sandwiched around Houston and Detroit the owners knew there was a possibility of three straight years of hosting the game in bad weather. But they approved it anyway, because they want the game to move around. If they wanted it only sunny and warm, they'd alternate it between San Diego and Miami and that'd be it. But they don't want that.

Jacksonville is the twelfth city to host the game and only one, Minneapolis, has hosted only one. It took Tampa and San Diego a first try to find their footing on how to host the game, and Jacksonville is finding it's way as well this time around.

The game will be back, perhaps in ten years, but it'll be back.

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