Rozner: Super Bowl XX still fresh in my mind

Thirty years ago this day, a desperate Bears fan boarded a plane to New Orleans having not yet located a ticket to Super Bowl XX - or dwelling for the next three nights.

Perhaps something short a leap of faith, it was not quite a flight to safety.

It didn't matter. I wasn't sure I'd find a place to sleep that didn't stink of stale beer, but I was absolutely certain I'd find a way into the Superdome.

Having witnessed precisely zero Chicago championships during my time on the planet, I wasn't going to miss the game.

No chance, no way.

But not far removed from college and essentially broke, cash was also a major issue.

In fact, there were so many obstacles a week before the game that I had no idea how any of it was going to work. If worse had indeed met worst, my 13-year-old vehicle - that few would suggest resembled a car - would have been the gamble.

There were no flights to be had and the trains sold out, but when charters began popping up late, I grabbed up a seat with a check that would have bounced all the way home if my dad hadn't come through with a few timely dollars.

My family had been through about as bad a year as one can imagine, and he decided this was a necessary expense. It mattered that much. One of us had to witness something good.

Still, there was no ticket and nowhere to rest - but one thing at a time.

Upon arriving in New Orleans Friday afternoon, one could see quickly it was every bit a Grant Park festival. Sure, every day's a party on Bourbon Street, but this was more than that. It was a Chicago Carnival, 90 percent Bears fans dominating the French Quarter.

Let's face it, we knew it was a coronation and the revelry had already begun.

Friday night I made some new friends - well, at least one - and found comfortable accommodations for an evening at Tulane, but Saturday I had neither a place to repose nor had I procured the elusive ticket.

Fortunately, a friend of the family was renting a house and I was offered a floor for the next two nights, which was plenty good enough, and the nights in the French Quarter celebrating the win before it had occurred are little more than muddled memories.

There was still the problem of finding a ticket, and nearly everyone I approached on the streets was in search of the same. But on Sunday morning, while attempting to fight off the night before with coffee and gumbo at a downtown hotel, I heard talk of a market at the Hyatt next to the Dome.

A slow trot turned into a sprint as I made it into the lobby and found scalpers everywhere. I was getting nowhere fast, shallow pockets preventing any serious conversation, when a sympathetic Bears fan sold me a ticket for $150, only twice face value.

The seat might have been a mile up in that monstrosity, but it didn't matter a bit. I was in. I called home to give my pop the news. It was big. A bad year was going to get worse - but not on this day.

The game, well, it was a massacre. Drama early after the Walter Payton fumble, drama late when Mike Ditka finally remembered that Payton hadn't scored and tried to get him in the end zone.

In between, it was the beating we expected and most memorable might have been the moment the teams ran off the field at halftime. At a neutral site where game-day personnel take no sides, they played the "Super Bowl Shuffle" on the giant video boards. No one could pretend at 23-3 that there were really two quarters remaining.

Final: 46-10.

The 73,818 in attendance spilled onto the streets and headed back to Bourbon Street. It was New Year's Eve in Times Square, but it was as if all of Chicago was singing and dancing in New Orleans, burying the ghosts of '69, '71, '83 and '84.

Turns out a place to sleep didn't matter Sunday night; the next time eyes did close would be on the charter home Monday.

There are some who have grown tired of hearing about the '85 Bears, but for those of us who arrived at a time when all we knew was losing, when heartbreak was as ingrained as the bitter Chicago winters, before six NBA championships, a White Sox World Series and three Stanley Cups, this was far and away the greatest sports moment of our lives.

It was one of those weekends you never forget, maybe as good as any ever experienced.

And it's funny, because in my mind's eye it feels like only yesterday.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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