If Falcons Win, Maybe He’ll Go to Leisure World

MIAMI — Steve DeBerg remembers clearly where he was last year the week before the Super Bowl, at home in Tampa trying to recover from another losing season as an itinerant quarterback.

What he doesn’t remember is the team’s name, the one representing (poorly, as it turns out) his health club in the city’s coed flag football league. There were five men and three women per side, his center was a woman who insisted he take snaps from the shotgun formation and they didn’t win the championship.

“Did you throw any interceptions?” he was asked Tuesday.

“Of course I did,” he said.

He was speaking to reporters on media day at Pro Player Stadium, where he will appear again Sunday as the backup quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons in one of the more remarkable stories of this or any other Super Bowl.

Actually, it has been a pretty good story for the entire season. But, maybe because he started only one game and played sparingly in seven others in relief of Chris Chandler, apparently not everyone heard about it.

“Steve DeBerg’s their backup?” Denver tight end Shannon Sharpe said when the subject was broached. “Steve DeBerg is still in this league? He’s old enough to be my father.”

Not quite. But 10 of the 45-year-old DeBerg’s Falcon teammates had not celebrated their third birthdays when he was drafted in 1977.

DeBerg played 17 years for seven teams (starting in San Francisco until replaced by Joe Montana, in Denver until John Elway, with Tampa Bay until Steve Young, again at Tampa Bay before Vinny Testaverde) before retiring in 1993.

He became a coach on Dan Reeves’ staff in New York and would have joined him in Atlanta last season if he could have been the offensive coordinator. When Reeves didn’t offer that, DeBerg turned to flag football.

Last summer, he wrote Reeves and asked if he could come back--not to coach but to play. DeBerg, however, forgot to enclose the letter in the envelope he mailed. When Reeves received the empty envelope, he called DeBerg and asked if there was something he was trying to say.

“The people I’m closest to, friends and family, were the ones who thought I was the craziest,” DeBerg said.

But Reeves told him it probably wouldn’t hurt him to try. It hasn’t. DeBerg feels so good he wants to come back and do it again next season.

First, though, he wants to enjoy every moment of the Super Bowl experience.

Most of it has been fun, he said.

What’s not fun?

“I’m 45,” he said, “and I’ve got a curfew.”

*

Eli Broad, the newest New Coliseum investor, was reluctant last week to commit to attending Thursday’s meeting here of 14 owners on the NFL’s expansion committee. . . .

He, wisely, gave it more thought and will arrive today. . . .

As will another Coliseum proponent, Mayor Richard Riordan, who finally is leaving the bench and getting into the game to obtain an NFL team for Los Angeles. . . .

Bronco Coach Mike Shanahan has asked the Denver media to come up with a nickname for him other than “Mastermind.” Reeves probably could give them a suggestion or two. . . .

You have to wonder if their dislike for each other is part of the Super Bowl media hype. Then you get around them and realize that it’s not. . . .

Randy Moss and Cris Carter received more publicity, but Atlanta wide receivers Terance Mathis and Tony Martin finished only seven yards behind the two Vikings as a tandem this season. . . .

Although he gained 157 yards and scored three touchdowns in last year’s Super Bowl victory over Green Bay, Terrell Davis might have done even better if he hadn’t missed part of the second and third quarters because of a migraine headache. . . .

He has a sign over his locker here reminding him to take his medication Sunday. . . .

Here’s a statistic that might give him a headache: Only one running back, the Jets’ Curtis Martin, has gained more than 100 yards against the Falcons in their last 26 games. They won 22 of them. . . .

You don’t have to respect or even like Lawrence Taylor to recognize that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. He’s the best defensive player I’ve ever seen. . . .

What’s the difference between him and Pete Rose? Rose broke baseball’s rules and, until he acknowledges that, should remain banished. . . .

While they know and appreciate Stevie Wonder and Gloria Estefan, some veteran sportswriters here are wondering why the NFL also invited Big Bad Voodoo Daddy to perform during halftime Sunday. . . .

I tell them to give BBVD a chance. They might like the swing band, especially on Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher.” . . .

Sharpe, who would fare about as well as a stand-up comedian as he does as a tight end, delivered a monologue Tuesday on his youth in Glennville, Ga., where he was not a Falcon fan. . . .

“What was there to like?” he said. “They lost all the time.” . . .

How bad were they? . . .

“They were so bad that if you had a pair of cleats when you went to Fulton County [Stadium], they’d put you on the field and make you play,” he said. “For 20 bucks, they’d let you sit with the owner.”

*

While wondering if Venus Williams isn’t her own worst enemy, I was thinking: Henry Bibby should be getting more out of this USC team, the Lakers still don’t have an answer for Karl Malone, I miss an NFL team more than ever during this week, but not the Rams or Raiders.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].