A Super Bowl expert

In his nine-year NFL career, wide receiver Don Beebe was a member of six Super Bowl teams.

Which qualifies the Aurora native, Kaneland High School graduate and current Aurora Christian High School football coach as one of the foremost authorities on the Big Game.

Beebe's first four appearances in the greatest spectacle in American sports resulted in defeat, as his Buffalo Bills lost every year from 1991-94, in Super Bowls XXV through XXVIII. But the bitterness of those mostly lopsided losses made Super Bowl XXXI that much more rewarding, when Beebe and the Green Bay Packers defeated the New England Patriots 35-21.

We'll let Beebe explain the feeling as the clock was ticking away the final seconds…

"I was just watching the last 10 seconds tick off the clock, and I was sure no one could appreciate it any more than I could after having lost four in a row," Beebe said. "When the game ended, I asked Brett (Favre) for the ball, and he said, 'No one deserves it more.'

"I waived my family down on the field and I was able to get them through security -- my wife (Diana) and my two oldest kids; my daughter (Amanda) was 5 at the time, and my son (Chad) was 2. I put my son on my shoulders and walked off the field holding my daughter's hand. It just doesn't get any better than that."

By then Beebe was already such an expert at preparing for the surreal week of excess preceding the ultimate game that Packers coach Mike Holmgren asked him and party animal backup quarterback Jim McMahon, the former Bear, to address the entire team several days before the insanity began -- but for different reasons.

"I remember Mike telling our team, 'I've got two guys I want to talk to you. I want Don to tell you what you should do, and I want Jim to tell you what not to do.' "

Beebe's message was simple.

"This game is bigger than any other game you'll ever play in," he told his teammates. "The media and the publicity is like nothing you've ever seen. If you go in there worrying about getting tickets for your family and friends and doing all the interviews, you're gonna get caught up in the hype and you're not going to be prepared to play the game."

That's what happened to Beebe in his first go-round, when he took it upon himself to make sure the needs of family, friends and former coaches were met.

"It was probably the worst game I ever played," he said. "After the week of activities, we got to Sunday and I was like, 'There's a game?' It just flashes past you, and then you realize there's still a game to play.

"It's a circus. It really is like the game is secondary to all the hoopla. Mentally I just wasn't there because all week I was making sure I took care of everything. Never again after that first one, though."

Beebe learned to delegate.

"For me, I shoved it all on my wife," he said. "She just told everyone, 'Don's really busy, he's not talking much this week, he doesn't have time, there's a lot he has to do.' I just concentrated on what I had to do. I went to bed at the same time, I got up at the same time. I didn't watch a lot of TV."

In his second Super Bowl, Beebe caught 4 passes for 61 yards, including a TD in a 37-24 loss to the Washington Redskins. A year later, in the 52-17 blowout loss to the Dallas Cowboys in the fifth and last Super Bowl played in Pasadena, Calif., Beebe had 2 catches for 50 yards, including a 40-yard TD. But those numbers have become a footnote to one of the greatest of all Super Bowl highlights.

Cowboys defensive lineman Leon Lett was chugging toward the goal line with a fumble return that would have given his team a 59-17 lead. But, despite Lett's huge head start, Beebe, who in his prime was clocked at a blazing 4.23 seconds in the 40-yard dash, sprinted the length of the field and knocked the ball out just short of the goal line, forcing a touchback.

Not only did the play epitomize the all-out effort that Beebe, 43, still takes pride in, it almost fulfilled a boyhood dream.

"When I was a little kid in Sugar Grove playing football in the backyard, I wanted to score the winning touchdown in Pasadena," Beebe said. "I don't know why Pasadena, but I just remember watching games on TV in Pasadena and I (almost) got my wish. I wasn't known for scoring the winning touchdown, but I was known for tackling Leon Lett."

When it came to the Super Bowl, though, the rest of the Bills didn't always exhibit that never-say-die attitude. According to Beebe, the team that is best able to handle the inevitable adversity that comes at some point in every football game is the one that comes out on top in the Super Bowl. He said the Bills never were able to recover when things went badly, citing the 30-13 loss to the Cowboys in their fourth straight Super Bowl loss.

The Bills led 13-6 at halftime and were decisively outplaying the Cowboys. But, in the first minute of the second half, Dallas safety James Washington returned a Thurman Thomas fumble 46 yards for a touchdown.

"If you looked at our sideline," Beebe said, "you'd have thought we were down by 30 points. The biggest reason the Bills lost four times was, because in the course of a game like that, you're going to be unbelievably scrutinized, and a lot of guys can't handle it.

"Anything you do is amplified like you can't believe, and you're going to have some adversity. The team that can handle adversity best will win."

Beebe believes that too many of his former teammates broke the cardinal rule of Super Bowl week by forgetting that it's a business trip rather than a vacation.

"I didn't go out during the week," Beebe said. "I just stayed in my room or went to a movie. A lot of guys want to enjoy the festivities, and I think a lot of the Bills enjoyed the festivities too much. That's one of the biggest reasons we lost four times. The enjoyment is (playing) the game. After the game's over, you can enjoy yourself all you want. You can go out as much as you want after the game's over.

"You don't need to do it the week before."