A true Odyssey comes into being
Our look to the future started nearly two years in the past.
About the artist
St. Petersburg Times newsartist David Williams spent more than four months planning, art-directing and illustrating this special section.
Outta this world
Even in today's technological society, it's not easy to take a photograph of a tattooed alien leaping through space to catch a glowing, metallic football.
Back to the future
George Young, the NFL's senior vice president of football operations and former New York Giants general manager, is a history buff. He recently handed me a newspaper story forecasting the future of sports in the new century.
From here to eternity
All you need to know about the future, really, is this.
Hottest taste sensations
"Getchyer red hot, ice blue KICKZ ritechyer. The Taste of Champions!"
A sneaky preview of halftime
Thousands of laser beams will be swirling Sunday night when the much-hyped halftime show for Super Bowl CXXXV gets underway.
2100-2101: Season in review
The Barsntaz
Why let a broken bone stop them?
The pundits say the outcome of the big game may hinge on whether the Barsntaz can control the line of scrimmage and let Quelian V find some daylight to run as only he can.
Your will is weak ... weak ...
Jack Welch is looking forward with particular pride to the upcoming 2101 Super Bowl. As chief executive officer of GE-DoCoMo-Nanosoft-Amazon (known as GE-DNA), the world's largest trans-galactic conglomerate with 350-million employees, Welch is betting big that the most-watched football contest ever will be the perfect event to unveil his company's boldest product line and new slogan.
'Get up, you bum'
Jim Melvin, a psychic reporter from Cassadaga, foretold this story for the Times after doing a mind-meld with Joe Clarke, whose upcoming pregame activities are detailed below. This story ends just before gametime because of galactic laws prohibiting Live Sporting Event Prophecies.
History repeats itself
Well, thank goodness for the 2101 Super Bowl, which is arriving just in time to take our minds off the news. Sometimes it seems that things get worse and worse with each passing year, and it makes you yearn for the simpler times of, say, a century ago.
Time capsule found at Plant City Beach
As part of this week's Super Bowl CXXXV celebration, we uncovered a time capsule (buried on St. Pete Beach in 2001 and moved to Plant City Beach after the Great Icecap Incident of 2057). What we found indicates a simpler, yet confusing time when elections were in doubt, people were confined to one planet and, apparently, fake talking fish were a hoot:
Historical review: Back to the year 2001
The Giants: 10 memorable events
A look at Super Bowl XXXV between the Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants played on Jan. 28, 2001, in Tampa, Florida, USA, Earth.
The Ravens: 10 memorable events
The Baltimore Ravens were a team without an identity. The Colts took their legacy with them to Indianapolis, and a new Browns franchise popped up in Cleveland. The Ravens were stuck somewhere in between.
Historical review: 100 years ago
WRAPUP: The Super Bowl-champion Rams unveiled their all-offense, no-defense game plan, outlasting Denver 41-36. ... About 770,000 people must have had it figured right. That's how many fewer viewers watched the Dennis Miller Monday Night Football debut than watched the 1999 MNF season-opener. ... Oakland's No.1 draft pick, Sebastian Janikowski, continued an FSU place-kicking tradition. Janikowski's first pro field-goal attempt, from 41 yards out against San Diego, sailed wide right. Still, the Chargers lost.
Super Bowl XXXV at a glance
WHO: Baltimore Ravens (AFC) vs. New York Giants (NFC).
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The uniforms
From head to foot, today’s uniforms clearly are superior to those of a century ago. It is amazing to think that yesterday’s athletes once did without shock-absorbing plutonium chest plates and “Headcom 3” series helmets.
The shoes
The adidas SABO enables the football cleats to extend and retract from the shoe based upon the movement of the player’s feet.
The teams
The Barsntaz and Bengals have some of the galaxy’s finest alien and human talent, but the clone of Joe Montana might put Barsntaz over the top.
The advertisements
Had a little too much Io beer before your drive home from the game? No problem. Just pop an Instant Sober pill and you’ll be ready to go.
The football
The TXR-1170 football is the latest in a long line of increasingly sophisticated game projectiles. See our comparison of footballs as they have evolved since as far back as 1873.
The trophy
The Fomon Trophy, awarded to the Super Bowl champion, is named for legendary coach Foo Fomon. The trophy, which replaced the Vince Lombardi trophy in 2061, contains the DNA of every MVP from every Super Bowl game since 2061.
The referees
The HAL 12,000 OC is the most reliable officiating computer ever made.
The stadium
The 300,000-seat TVR3M Dome, completed in the year 2091, is a slow-orbiting, gravity-controlled marvel of engineering, containing every convenience a football fan could hope to enjoy.
Historical review: 100 years ago
These drawings by school kids from the year 2001, which depicted what football would be like in the future, are part of the art exhibit ‘‘2000-2010: The Harry Potter Period.’’
