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All hype for some, a boon for others

By STEPHEN F. HOLDER
Published February 4, 2007

MIAMI - It's Super Bowl Sunday, and the NFL and local host committee will tell you that means big things for South Florida, namely a potential economic impact of $350-million.

But the Super Bowl means different things to different people. It means much more to Anthony Marotta, who provides visiting jet-setters with everything from Lamborghini sports cars to penthouse apartments, than it does for Aaron Cliett, a man who recently became homeless and was passing out fliers on a street corner in Allapattah Friday, barely earning enough to eat.

The following are personal stories of the Super Bowl in Miami, as seen through the eyes of a few of its multicultural and economically diverse residents.

Anthony Marotta

Marotta can barely bring himself to tell someone "no." It's bad for business. If the rich and famous need it, Marotta will find it.

Hip-hop mogul Diddy is on his speed dial. He just hung up after a conversation with actor and singer Jamie Foxx. Later, boxer Bernard Hopkins is on the line.

"Any charge for Bernard," a receptionist asks. "No," says Marotta, 33.

"He's a personal friend," Marotta later explains.

As part-owner of Carefree Lifestyle on South Beach, Marotta provides impeccable services - at a steep price. This week, business is booming despite premium prices fueled by intense demand. Want a Rolls-Royce Phantom for the weekend? No problem - as long as you don't mind plopping down $3,500 a day. Need a yacht, bodyguard or private jet? That, too, can be arranged.

Only occasionally, Marotta must inform his clients he can't meet their needs.

"A lot of people ask us for drugs," he says. "They'll say, 'You gave me all this stuff. Do you have a couple ounces of coke?' We have too many assets here to risk messing with that stuff."

Aaron Cliett

Cliett is going through a rough time in his life. He has taken up temporary residence in a nearby homeless shelter. He has spent the past few days handing out fliers for a car insurance agency near the corner of NW 20th Street and 17th Avenue, just trying to make enough to meet everyday needs.

It's not much. "Man, it's not even minimum wage," he says.

He sort of wonders how he got here. "I never thought I would be here," he says, "but here I am." Still, Cliett, 38, is determined not to stay in this predicament long. Having recently ventured south from Washington, D.C., he doesn't have the necessary identification to secure legitimate employment. Workers at an outreach center are helping him through the red tape.

Asked whether he thought any of the supposed $350-million windfall would make its way into his pockets, he looks at the surrounding beaten neighborhood and says, "How much? I can tell you right now the people around here ain't going to see any of that money."

Virginia and Beatrice Gilbert

Sisters are usually tight, but Virginia and Beatrice Gilbert are taking it a step further. Their new houses will be two doors away from each other.

Each will receive a Habitat for Humanity house, part of 12 being built in Blitz Build 2007. The NFL partners with Habitat in each Super Bowl city for a similar project. The league doesn't make a financial commitment, but by bringing players like the Bucs' Derrick Brooks and the Chargers' Donnie Edwards to the site as volunteer builders, it raises awareness of the effort.

As for the sisters, they don't know much about football, but they know this is a dream come true.

"I started screaming when I found out," says 23-year-old Virginia, a mother of two. "This is a turning point in my life. If I can be a homeowner, I can do anything."

But there was an ironic twist to this tale. The new homes are being built on the same land where the notorious, barracks-style Scott-Carver housing project once stood - a place they lived in for 10 years.

Leo Hector

Leo Hector runs a liquor store on Calle Ocho (Eighth Street) in Little Havana. Football isn't really a high priority in the area.

"The old men around here, they all like baseball," says the 29-year-old Hector, who came to Miami in 1995 from Cuba. "Me, I don't know anything about sports." Besides, most of the thousands of visitors in town for the Super Bowl won't even visit this neighborhood, unless they make a wrong turn off Interstate 95.

Hector hopes to sell a few more bottles of $29 Johnnie Walker scotch or $33 Ketel One vodka this weekend if his regulars have a handful of Super Bowl parties. Otherwise, business is best on the second Sunday in March, when the Cuban-American "Calle Ocho" street festival is held.

"You say it brings $350-million," Hector says. "That sounds impossible."

Raymond Gibson

The NFL/YET Center (Youth Education Town) has turned out numerous success stories. There was the young man who once worked at the community center who is now its athletic director; the young woman who beat the odds and emerged from the neighboring ghetto to become a teacher and mentor at her former high school.

Raymond Gibson wants his two children to tell similar tales one day, which is why he drives them several times a week to the facility from the family's North Miami home. Nychel and Raymond Jr. could play sports for leagues in their own community, but Gibson believes in the lessons his kids are learning at the YET Center.

The NFL builds one in every Super Bowl host city, and the people it benefits most are those who might never set foot in a stadium on Super Bowl Sunday.

"These kids learn how to interact with each other here, and I want my kids to see how fortunate they are," says Gibson, 41. "That's why I bring them back to the old neighborhood."

[Last modified February 4, 2007, 00:27:05]