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© St. Petersburg Times, published January 14, 2003
If, if, if ... if the Bucs can reverse history and win in Philadelphia ... if they reach San Diego ... if they achieve the impossible ...
Oh, the PR possibilities. Tampa's name will appear in every sports section in America. It will roll off the tongue of all the armchair analysts on the network pre- and postgame shows.
A Super Bowl win for Tampa wouldn't just be a victory for the Bucs or a major metropolitan thrill.
It would be a consolation prize to make up for the trophies that have passed us by.
Two years ago, we were denied the Olympics in 2012.
Last week, it was the GOP national convention in 2004.
For as long as I can remember, we have measured ourselves by our skill at snaring these prizes, sports being the king of them all. We've hosted three Super Bowls in the last 18 years, and we're seeking another.
The theory is that if they say enough nice things about us in the visiting press, people will want to come here to live. It'll be good for business.
This process has always struck me as shallow and ineffective. A convention would have been nice, but not necessary -- a four-day party that would be forgotten as soon as it ended.
Do you remember which cities held the conventions in 2000? (The Republicans were in Philadelphia, and the Democrats in Los Angeles. I had to look it up too.)
But had Tampa won over New York, the PR-minded would have crowed about acing Gotham. Just think -- up against Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera, the Brooklyn Bridge, Tampa had something more.
But more of what?
Why doesn't the energy and planning that goes into snaring jocks and the GOP go into winning over corporations that pay better than a housekeeper's wage and offer that most luxurious benefit, health insurance? Why can't we put our minds to building a major mass transit system that would criss-cross the bay?
And if we had these things, the jobs, the mass transit, what kind of place would Tampa be then?
What kind of place, indeed.
Wannabe-ism is our public policy. We look outward, not inward. We chase these other, big-ticket events because we think they will magically lift us out of backwater status to the big time, from the second tier of America's cities to the first.
Nobody asks if we really want to climb that ladder.
If the question were posed, I can guess the answer. We moved here from New York, Chicago and Atlanta because we were looking to escape the congestion, the crowding, the cost. We have no desire to re-create these other features of big-city life.
If we were smart about it, we'd learn to take the measure of our identity differently. Losing a convention wouldn't be the end of the world. We would get cranked up for events other than sports. We would have the will to make things happen not because they're good for conventioneers but because they're good for us.
Ah, but my timing is lousy. For the next week, and if all goes well for the Bucs, the next two weeks, absolutely nothing in Tampa will take second place to the team's Super Bowl prospects. On every sports page in every paper in every city, Tampa's name will be repeated and repeated. The people who think that sports is the best way to promote their town will be riding high.
Time for deep thinking will have to come later.
-- Mary Jo Melone can be reached at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813)226-3402.