FOOTBALL FANS GATHER FOR BIG GAME SUNDAY

For the people who gathered at The Playdium Sunday evening, the Super Bowl was less of a football game and more of an event, which explains why many of them started arriving long before the 5:18 kickoff of the big game.

Thousands of people, regardless of their feelings about the sport, gathered around television sets Sunday afternoon to watch Super Bowl XXXII. Many area football fans gathered at sports bars to watch as the Denver Broncos defeated the Green Bay Packers 31-24 for the championship title.

"I've been here since two o'clock debating with the cheeseheads and having a couple of cold ones," said Jeff Perkins of Cape Girardeau.

Perkins, who wore his Rams sweatshirt, said he was normally a St. Louis fan, but that on Sunday he was rooting for the Broncos.

And root he did.

As the game started, Perkins seemed to be Denver's loudest cheerleader. With each tackle the Broncos defense made, with each completed pass by quarterback John Elway, Perkins would lift a fist to the sky and let out with a boisterous yell.

"Yeah!" he would scream.

When they made their initial first down, he went up and down the bar, announcing to every Packers fan that it was a first down, then giving high fives to the other Denver supporters.

"The AFC hasn't won a Super Bowl in 13 years," he said. "I'm tired of the NFC being dominant. I'm pulling for the underdog."

Perkins' friend, Roy Vivian of St. Louis, sat more stoically watching the game, though he, too, was clearly pulling for the Broncos.

Vivian, who had come to the area to goose hunt and stayed to watch the game, said that fate was on the side of Denver.

"This may be Elway's last opportunity," he said. "He's too good a quarterback not to win one."

Other Broncos fans were not so certain of fate's hand.

Debbie Naeter of Cape Girardeau said, "I would like to see Denver win, but I don't think they will."

Though the Denver fans were the louder group, The Playdium was evenly divided between Broncos and Packers fans.

When Denver pulled ahead 14-7, Scott Shivelbine, who was cheering for the Packers, said that he still thought Green Bay would win.

"Though I don't think they'll cover the spread," he said.

The only thing that seemed to pull their attention from one of many television screens was Mike Schmidt, affectionately called "Schmitty," serving trays of vegetables and chips, cheese and sausage. At half-time Schmitty served his homemade taco soup, which quickly disappeared.

A third group at the bar was made up of those people who came not so much to watch the game, but to be a part of the event known as Super Bowl Sunday.

Cathy Davis of Cape Girardeau, who sat with her friends at the bar, didn't really care who won.

"I really only like the commercials, though they could probably feed a third world country on what they spend on the commercials," she said.

Janice Kutz of Cape Girardeau announced herself as more of a baseball fan than a football fan.

"My theory on the game is that they should give everybody a football instead of fighting over one," she said.