FEBRUARY 2020 39
for mistakes that were made,” Swann says. “And
that catch in Super Bowl X was no different.”
We couldn’t quite see it then, but this was the
future of football. It would become a sport of ath-
leticism and beauty, not just strength and brutality.
All that was missing was trash talk and complaints
about the referees. Those would come soon enough.
THE CITY OF MIAMI
manages to mingle incredible energy with a re-
laxed vibe; where else could a beach be so electric?
And this is why it is an ideal setting for the Super
Bowl. Part of the allure of the game is that we take
it seriously and laugh at it at the same time. Fit-
tingly, in Miami, a cocaine addict showed us how.
Before Super Bowl XIII, Cowboys linebacker
Thomas (Hollywood) Henderson told the media
that Bradshaw “couldn’t spell cat if you spotted
him the c and the a.” Has there ever been a better
Super Bowl week insult than that? Henderson and
Bradshaw were on the cover of Newsweek before
the game. The Super Bowl had become that en-
trenched in American culture.
Super Bowl V was filled with so many turnovers
that Sports Illustr ated writer Tex Maule
suggested the game be called the Blunder Bowl.
But it’s remembered fondly because it featured
the Super Bowl’s first truly great finish: The Colts’
Jim O’Brien kicked a field goal with nine seconds
left to beat the Cowboys.
Super Bowl X provided the biggest highlight
of the game’s first decade: Lynn Swann’s Tyree-
before-Tyree catch against the Cowboys. Swann,
the Steelers’ star receiver, had suffered a concus-
sion in the AFC championship game and only
decided the Friday before the Super Bowl that he
would play. Terry Bradshaw threw him a bomb,
Dallas cornerback Mark Washington knocked
the ball in the air, and Swann maintained his
concentration and caught it anyway. It was exactly
as nobody drew it up, which made it perfect. No
matter how much the NFL orchestrated the event,
the game itself could not be scripted.
“Usually, great catches or catches that stick in
people’s minds are ones that either required some-
thing they’ve never seen before, or compensating
SUPER BOWL XIII
STEELERS 35, COWBOYS 31
Jan. 21, 1979
The first Super Bowl rematch—three years later in
the same town—played out much like the original.
Dallas again took a second quarter lead, on a strip-
sack TD created in part by Hollywood Henderson
(en route to Miami, above), but Terry Bradshaw
(right) ended up stealing the show, with four TDs.
KEN REGAN
/CAM
ERA 5 (SW
AN
N); AP/SH
UTTERSTO
CK (H
EN
DERSO
N); H
EIN
Z KLU
ETM
EIER (BRADSH
AW
)
