Super Bowl XXXVII

Passion stirs heart of the city

MELONE E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published January 29, 2003

They came.

A couple of forklift operators from Orlando. A first-grade teacher from Town 'N Country with a rubber pirate ship on her head, and her aunt, a kindergarten teacher from South Tampa. A woman from St. Petersburg who made a point of getting half the Bucs season tickets in her divorce settlement. A systems programmer from Valrico. A finance major from the University of Tampa and his girlfriend.

They came and filled downtown Tampa's Lykes Gaslight Park and the blocks beyond. I can't tell you how many blocks. I was thick in the crowd. I couldn't see unless I looked up.

The Bucs flag waved from City Hall. The clock atop the tower said it was nearly 4:10 in the afternoon. People on the terrace halfway up the building tried to throw red balloons down to the crowds below. Then came the wail of police sirens.

And from that crowd in Gaslight Park an enormous cheer rose, as the Bucs came down Kennedy Boulevard, turned and entered Franklin Street Mall. This was the crowd's moment. But people had to work to get the most out of it.

If you maneuvered just right and looked through a break in the mass of people, you could see Rich McKay holding the Lombardi Trophy. If you turned around, you could see Mike Alstott making a happy fool of himself as he waved from the roof of a TV truck.

It was a glorious moment held in an overlooked place. There were people in that crowd who hadn't been downtown in years, people who only come downtown when Jimmy Buffett plays for some Democratic pep rally, people who come in and leave as fast as they can after a hockey game.

There was never a reason to linger in downtown Tampa, for a purpose other than work, unless it was to see the rear end of a Gasparilla parade -- until Tuesday afternoon. For once, downtown served the purpose it was meant to have, as the heart of the community.

And what kind of community? I heard people say they were proud not just that the Bucs had won, but that they were proud of themselves. They weren't like fans in other cities, they said. They didn't get ugly. They didn't trash things. They could take their kids along to the game, as well as Tuesday's parade.

And sure enough, I met a woman pushing a stroller whose son marked his first birthday on Super Bowl Sunday, and another mom whose 2-month-old baby girl was nestled in a baby sling across her chest.

I have written a lot about the Bucs and what I've always thought of as their overdone place in Tampa. I have usually written it from the outside looking in. To be in that crowd Tuesday was to be on the inside, among the truest of true believers who told you that the Bucs' win unites Tampa Bay in a way nothing else can.

I have to admit that Tuesday afternoon they turned my head and got my attention. Such an outpouring of heart will do that to you.

And heart they had. The party would have lasted all night except whoever put the parade together screwed up. The sound system hardly worked. The school teachers, the forklift operators, the college students, the husbands and wives who had taken off work and packed up the kids in the car and waited so long for this day they never thought would come, couldn't hear a thing when their uniformed idols stepped forward on a makeshift stage on the mall to speak.

People began to grumble and walk off. The fantasy moment that began in San Diego on Sunday was coming to an unpleasant end.

I am sure that if I had asked, the people around me would have said it ended much too soon.

-- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.