Quinn Hunter/The Carolinian

“Students on campus gathered on Sunday in the EUC to watch the New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl“

By Daniel Johnson, Staff writer

Published in print Feb. 4, 2015

The month of February opened with one of the biggest television events in the country, the Puppy Bowl.

Following that cultural extravagant of pups on the gridiron, the human  and less fun version of the Puppy Bowl, the Super Bowl occurred this past Sunday.  For UNCG, the EUC opened its doors for the final game of the 2014-15 National Football League season between the reigning champions Seattle Seahawks as they attempted to repeat as champions against the elder dynastic franchise of the New England Patriots.

Off the field, story lines such as Marshawn Lynch’s articulate interview antics, Deflate-Gate, Richard Sherman’s wife potentially to go into labor, have played like a soap opera instead of a football game these past two weeks going into the game.

With so much going on off the field, for the most part, the Super Bowl has become more than just a football game. It has become an annual day in the United States where millions of Americans nationwide watch entertaining commercials, pop stars performing in ridiculous outfits with bizarre surroundings that would make the Yellow Submarine seem sober, and of course, the cutest puppies you ever seen! I mean football! Big! Strong! Masculinity! Football!

For the EUC Super Bowl Party, Freshmen Rakim Gallet and Janea Bladen gave their opinions on the holiday-like celebration for the Super Bowl.

“With so many people celebrating the sport, and how much they are into it has become like a national holiday” Gallet said. “It brings unity like a national holiday.”

“I am a big football fan, even though I do not play, and the sport does bring people together in this country,” Bladen explained.

A big part of what makes the first Sunday in February so special is the commercials between the game.

From Mean Joe Greene gave a small boy his jersey in 1979, to the Apple Macintosh Ad comparing other forms of computers to a totalitarian government (akin to Orwell’s 1984), the Super Bowl commercial have made us laugh for years. Junior Nicki Philbrick talked about her favorite commercials to look for.

“The Doritos commercials are great” she said.

She also talked about past experiences she had for the game.

“I am one of eight kids, so my entire family would come over, and we would just make a bunch of food.”

Aside from the commercials and food, the halftime performance has become a staple of the Super Bowl watching experience.

From classic rock performance from Bruce Springsteen, The Who, and Paul McCartney, to the modern stars such as Beyonce and Bruno Mars, the Super Bowl has had just as many performances from the older generation to the newer one.

This year, we got a little of both.

Most people knew that Katy Perry was performing, however, with all the people I interviewed, no one could name the other two musicians performing.

Along with Perry, Missy Elliott, one of the greatest female rappers in history, gave a three-minute medley of her best songs. Also performing was Lenny Kravitz, (who has become more famous recently with his Hunger Games role as Cinna) performed “I Kissed a Girl” with Katy Perry.

With all the answers I heard, along with the Halftime show, there is something festive about the day.

There is an unity that comes with the day that has not been seen since the holidays a month earlier. People gather around the television, with pizza and drinks, and spend three hours watching a game that many do not even know anything about.

Freshmen Andrea Seti said that this was his first time watching the Super Bowl, and senior Sam Barnes talked about how his family focused more on the arts than football.

However, both waited in line for the EUC to watch the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks in one of the most controversial, and back and forth NFL games since, the last games the two teams played in the 2012 regular season. Well, now that the season is over, let get ready for six long months of everyone’s favorite game, the Hindsight game, as we impatiently wait for the 2015 NFL season to kick off.

Categories: daniel johnson, quinn hunter, Sports