Go Colts!!!!!!

[Dodie]

OK. Indy is rocking!

GO COLTS!!!!!!!!!

 

[ilovejack02]

I LOVE PAYTON!!!
Go Colts!!!

 

[Galahad]

OK. Indy is rocking!

GO COLTS!!!!!!!!!

 

[Pixiedust34]

We are Steelers fans, but for today we will be cheering the Colts. So,

Go Colts!

 

[Laz]

I have never seen this state so alive in February!

GO HORSE!!! KICK BEAR!!!

 

[LittleBlue22]

There was a sea of blue today in church

 

[tommygirl79]

Another from the Indy area here to say................


GO BLUE!

 

[shortbun]

GO COLTS!!!!!! We can feel you Indy folks all the way over here in Ohio and we're sending the vibes to PA and KY!!

 

[LittleBlue22]

Let's keep this thread where it belongs, at the top of page 1

 

[mrsmom]

GO COLTS!!!!! From Cincy!
Kim

 

[LittleBlue22]

I wonder what the ratio is for Colts and Bears fans in Miami? I'm watching the pregame and all I hear is Go Bears

btw It will be a great game

 

[arminnie]

Article on the Mannings in today's Times Picayune.
A quiet cheerleader
Archie Manning, patriarch of New Orleans' first football family, watches his son Peyton play in Super Bowl XLI today.
Sunday, February 04, 2007

MIAMI -- For Archie Manning, the script tells you it has been a journey sprinkled with nothing but stardust.
A freckle-faced, red-headed kid comes out of the Mississippi Delta, out of a whistle-stop named Drew. He becomes an All-American quarterback in college. He marries the homecoming queen. He becomes a hero in a valiant, yet impossible, attempt to elevate the fortunes of an apparently cursed professional football team.

As the roar of the crowd becomes a distant memory, he becomes the father of three football-playing sons, two of them All-American quarterbacks, who become first-round draft picks handed multimillion-dollar contracts. One of those sons, 30-year-old Peyton, is here to play in Super Bowl XLI today.

So, for 57-year-old Archie Manning, this has been a week when all the memories, the sad ones, the happy ones, go racing by. At every opportunity, Peyton Manning says what he has been saying ever since he climbed to stardom with the Tennessee Volunteers, then with the Indianapolis Colts.

That he's more the son of an All-American father than an All-American quarterback.

Back to 'Mayberry'
Archie hears this and the memories race back to Drew, a place Archie calls "right out of Mayberry," a place where Buddy Manning watched his son grow up playing football, baseball and basketball. It was Archie playing shortstop, not quarterback, that first had the townsfolk talking.

"I was starting on my high school team when I was in seventh grade," Archie recalled. "They already had me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was crazy."

Buddy Manning would show up, usually with the other dads, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. "Dad never pushed me into sports," Archie said. "But he was always there for me and my sister, who was two years older. The thing I'll never forget about Dad is how much attention he gave to my sister at a time when I was getting all the attention because of sports. He never wanted her to feel left out. What a happy time we had."

And then. Archie was 20, already a celebrated quarterback at Ole Miss, about to start his junior year, the day he came home to find Buddy's body, a suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest. Archie froze. Then he rushed to clean up the scene before his mother got home. Buddy Manning had been in ill health and, the feeling was, he didn't want to be a burden to the family.

"I look back on it as Dad having a weak moment in life," Archie said. "I guess it made me grow up in a hurry. I don't know. I do know I had thoughts about quitting school, getting a job. My mom wouldn't hear of it. She wanted me in school. She got a job. She went to work and kept things going."

Agony and ecstasy
Sadly, Buddy Manning would miss what Archie Manning is now living through with Peyton and Eli. The roar of the crowd. The agony and the ecstasy that are part of fun and games.

Along the way, Archie and his wife, Olivia, would live through some serious moments with Cooper, a wide receiver who caught Peyton's passes for one season at Newman and moved on to Ole Miss, where he had high hopes to catch more passes before developing a narrowing of the spinal cord, leading to an operation, a blood clot and a second operation, followed by a decision that Cooper's football days were over.

Peyton would later recall his dad's anxiety at the time, over the possibility of Cooper becoming paralyzed, thinking there are tragedies and crises, thinking, "I can't imagine being in my dad's shoes the day he found his dad."

Later, Archie would find himself living through a minor crisis of sorts: Peyton's decision to choose Tennessee over Ole Miss. In Rebel minds, Archie was to Ole Miss what Robert E. Lee was to "the cause." The wounds inside Mississippi were still raw the day Archie was driving from New Orleans to Jackson and pulled into a truck stop for a cup of coffee. On this particular morning, the greatest athlete in Ole Miss history was told: "If you know what's best for you, you won't ever stop here again."

It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Archie to recruit his son for his alma mater. But, in this instance, he was a father who, for some, committed an unpardonable sin: He allowed his son to make his own decision.

Peyton would break 33 records at Tennessee and graduate cum laude with a 3.6 grade-point average. Later, Eli would go to Ole Miss and leave behind a few records of his own.

Meanwhile, Archie and Olivia were busy racking up some parenting records of their own. During the Mannings' Newman days, there was one week they watched 17 basketball games. Their best estimate is, during the high school and college days of Cooper, Peyton and Eli, they were in the stands for 950 sporting events.

Cheering quietly. They'll be cheering today for their son and the Colts. A calming influence.

"Peyton has been blessed to have the two coaches he's had," said Archie, Jim Mora for four seasons, Tony Dungy for five. "Peyton and Coach Mora had their squabbles," Archie said, "and that's because they're a lot alike, a couple of fiery personalities. But Jim was good for Peyton in those early years, backing him up when he had days throwing four and five interceptions."

And Coach Dungy? "Tony has been a calming influence on Peyton," Archie said. "And he's also been one for the team. He comes across as genuine. The Colts are playing like a team that has taken on the personality of their head coach."

As for advice, Archie figures the best Peyton received may have come from Emmitt Smith, who was going back to his first Super Bowl as a running back with the Dallas Cowboys.

"Emmitt," Archie said, "told Peyton what to do right before running on the field for the pre-game introductions. He told Peyton to remember to breathe.

Go Colts!!! I used to watch football games at Newman.

 

[Teejay32]

 

[Laz]

I gets me worried with all the pre game Manning talk on television. I hope he is not listening.

 

[mla973]

Go Colts!!!

 

[Serena]

 

[Ms Marigny]

Peyton's our boy!

Go Colts!!!

 

[raammartin]

GO COLTS!

 

[Serena]

Go colts!!!