Day 3 - The University Perspective

The Super Bowl is a genuine smorgasbord of opportunity for sports-writers. There is SO much to cover, you can pick and choose the events and occasions that best suit your working brief, and schedule your day accordingly.

With up to 18 officially scheduled media events a day, it is impossible to cover them all; the smorgasbord would become an exercise in pure gluttony (with the indigestion to match), hence the need to be selective.

And following the excesses of Media Day, it is far more important to pick up on a strand, theme or player that most aptly fits the bill for a follow-up or additional story-line.

Therefore Nick Szczepanik (a fellow journalist from The Times in the UK and my constant traveling companion this week) and I decide the Steelers will be our most likely source of valuable follow-up material on the Wednesday.

This requires the daily drive down I-4 from Orlando (the cheapest hotel rate of all, seeing as it's my home for large parts of the year!) but, in this case, instead of having to negotiate the last few traffic-choked miles of the highway, we can turn off along I-75 for the University of South Florida (just don't try to be geographic about this, seeing as south Florida is actually some 200 miles further in a southerly direction).

The USF campus is the working home this week of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and there are some indications in Journoville that the AFC representatives have been given the short end of the stick as regards facilities (seeing as the Cardinals get to use the ultra-smart Buccaneers practice ground).

You'll certainly hear no such grouching from the Steelers or any of their coaches, but it certainly does seem a more spartan set-up than most NFL teams will be used to. Just to start with, driving in to the campus provides little - if any - evidence that there is a major event on the premises.

Nick and I searched in hope, but any signposts to the Steelers' presence were sadly lacking. Having driven into one parking lot where, clearly, visiting international journalists were not intended to be (students gazed at our frantic navigations with a mixture of incredulity and mild amusement), we needed to extricate ourselves in a hurry lest we incur the wrath of the local parking tzar. While signage of any kind of NFL activity was decidedly deficient, the insistence on proper parking permits was omni-present.

Trying to be logical, we followed the only signs we could find for the athletic facilities and, very soon, the indoor Sun Dome stadium hove into view. Anything vaguely Pittsburghian remained elusive, and an enquiry of an elderly gent in a green jacket at the back of the parking lot (well, he looked official from a distance) elicited only more blank looks.

A phalanx of idling motorcycle police gave more hope of a pointer in the right direction and, sure enough, we were pointed in the direction of the Sun Dome itself, despite its general lack of any encouraging journalistic signs.

However, by the time we had parked (looking around carefully for those parking permit signs), a steady trickle of similarly half-bewildered, accreditation-bedecked individuals had started to appear, moving in the direction of the sign that proudly proclaimed 'Media Entrance.'

Only not today.

Oh no. The entrance for the media was ALL the way round the other side (like, around a 270-degree journey from our present spot). Ho hum, and off we trek.

Dodging the traffic on a non-sidewalk section of road, we did eventually find our way to the appointed entryway, and here the gathering of all things media-like was well under way.

The stark difference from the Cardinals' base of the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay was immediately evident. No plush hotel surroundings for these blue collar Steelers - instead, much of the court area of the Sun Dome was curtained off into a press hall with podium and a secondary area with tables and mini-podiums.

Mike Tomlin and Ben Roethlisberger are first up, doing their thing for the massed ranks of the media in (another) extended Q&A. Tomlin remains intently focused on the end product of all this week's vast hype and hoopla, while his quarterback is giving the impression he is definitely ready for the game. He answers everything perfectly politely, but you sense he would rather be having root canal work rather fielding yet another question on Anquan Boldin's sideline hoo-ha during the NFC Championship game.

With that part of the session suitably concluded, it is the turn of the other 50-odd players to shamble into the other part of the hall and take up positions either at the circular tables or on the mini-podiums. Troy Polamalu, James Harrison, LaMarr Woodley, Santonio Holmes and Hines Ward all all 'podium guys' again today. The rest are either in listless repose at the tables or wandering in small groups, idly glancing at their watches to see when they can get out to practice.

It's a good chance to get some one-on-one questions, though, with almost everyone (if you're patient enough), as you're not required to be quite so telepathic with the timing of your question-asking. The players are in closer proximity and all seem happy to take these face-to-face moments with due care and courtesy.

Polamalu and Ward draw the biggest crowds, but even those fluctuate and dwindle at different times in the half-hour session, allowing me to ask the soft-spoken Samoan what he'd really like to do if he sees Larry Fitzgerald coming over the middle in his direction on Sunday (the answer, of course, is far more circumspect than the question, as Troy insists the defence's hard-hitting characteristics are purely a team ethos and nothing personal. I would certainly want written proof of that before I ever crossed the white lines with these guys, though).

I ask similar posers of Woodley and Harrison, and then notice bleach-haired kicker Jeff Reed sitting almost on his lonesome, so I manage a short conversation on the mentality of a kicker's lot with him.

Finally, with the session drawing to a close, I decide the rather large form of No 77 is worth tackling, as he looks distinctly forlorn on the fringe of this mini-melee. And with good cause. Pittsburgh residents will immediately have noted the inhabitant of this jersey as being Marvel Smith, officially relegated to Injured Reserve on December 3 with back problems and therefore a non-combatant on Sunday.

But the nine-year left tackle is still happy to chat and turns out to be a truly charming and insightful conversationalists, discussing his approach to Super Bowl XL and how he genuinely managed to treat it as "just another game," something I had always suspected professional sportsmen in general of telling massive porky pies about. He is a big fan of coach Tomlin and is still hoping to pass on some of his veteran savvy to younger team-mates prior to the game.

Somehow, Super Bowl XLIII will seem just a little poorer for his non-participation.