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Sports Watch
AND the winner of Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa, Fla., is ... Charles Schwab. Giants have history
on their sideEither Baltimore Ravens' Shannon Sharpe or New York New York Giants' Jason Sehorn will be sporting a Super Bowl ring after next Sunday's NFL championship game.
But it'll be the discount brokerage firm scoring the most points because of its popular television commercial featuring Sharpe and Sehorn.
You know the one in which the trash-talking Sharpe gets all over Sehorn, telling him, "Sehorn, you don't even know how to spell Dow Jones."
The commercial has been airing for two years. It's the funniest football spoof since Southwest Airlines' "want-to-get away?" ad about a referee who forgot a coin for the toss and asked if anyone had change for a dollar.
Sehorn loves the commercial, even though he's the butt of a joke. The residuals more than make up for it.
"Somebody was a real genius to put us together two years before we're playing each other in the Super Bowl," Sehorn told the New York Times.
The ad guy was even more prescient because Sharpe was then playing for the Denver Broncos.
The Schwab commercial, despite its renewed shelf life, won't be airing during the Super Bowl. Not at $2.3 million a pop for a 30-second spot.
Among the usual suspects back with commercials will be Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, FedEx -- it must have had some money left over from the Orange Bowl or a kickback from the Tom Hanks' movie "Castaway" -- and Visa.
Don't be surprised if the commercials will be more entertaining than the game itself. Nobody's expecting a lot of scoring.
Defense brought both teams to Tampa, which is just as well since the host site hasn't seen much scoring from the hometown Buccaneers anyway.
The over-under might be 30 points in Super Bowl zzzzzZZZZZZ. But surely, it can't match the scoring futility of Super Bowl VII when Miami beat Washington, 14-7, still the lowest total for two teams.
And the winner of Super Bowl XXXV? The New York Giants.
Hey, it's the Year of the Big Apple isn't it? Torre's Yankees and Benny's Mets.
MEANWHILE, Baltimore's for the birds. Orioles and now Ravens. Still, any team with a nickname inspired by Edgar Allan Poe can't be all bad.
I like the Giants, not only because of Angie Harmon, Sehorn's "Law and Order" lady friend. I still remember coach Fassel when he quarterbacked the Hawaiians of the defunct World Football League.
Then, too, quarterback Kerry Collins would be the NFL comeback story of the year if he leads the Giants to victory.
I'm pulling for Collins he because another athlete now here is also waging a comeback from a drinking problem -- golfer John Daly, whose playing in the Sony Open.
Both are struggling to turn their careers and, more important, their lives around.
"I went through a rough stretch a few years back. Alcohol was a big part of my life at the time, maybe too much a part of my life," Collins told reporters. "My story is if you can change and do things the right way, good things will happen."
The words ring true for Daly as well.
Finally, the Giants have a little history on their side.
The last time they won the Super Bowl, it was in Tampa and the president's name was Bush. That was in 1991.
This year, it's the Giants by 6. I hope not just on two field goals.
Bill Kwon has been writing about
sports for the Star-Bulletin since 1959.