NEW ORLEANS — There were Bears on the prowl that night, Bears named Jim McMahon and Jay Hilgenberg, partying hard at a local institution named Pat O’Brien’s, home of the Hurricane, a sweet-but-deadly drink that is guaranteed to sweep virtually all of your brain cells out to sea.
This was early in the week of Super Bowl XX, long before Mike Ditka would impose curfew on Friday night, because it was well past midnight when I spotted McMahon and his group cavorting with Miss Hawaiian Tropic Oklahoma. I immediately rushed to a pay phone near the entrance and dictated the breaking news to an editor on The Post sports desk.
The backpage headline for the last edition: Mayhem in the A.M.
McMahon was the cocky punk rock quarterback who:
* Convinced management to fly in acupuncturist Hiroshi Shirioshi to treat his bruised left buttock.
* Mooned a TV news helicopter that hovered over Bears practice.
“I just wanted to show them where it hurt,” McMahon said.
* Was wrongfully accused by local television sportscaster Buddy Diliberto of calling the women of New Orleans “sluts” and the men “idiots,” resulting in an apology from Diliberto and a two-week suspension. And Cajun-laced death threats for McMahon that has him worried to death about snipers far more than helicopters.
* Remembered his way back in the wee hours of the morning to Bob Hope’s penthouse suite, where an elaborate buffet sat.
“Please help yourself to anything you want,” an attendant said to McMahon and Hilgenberg, “but try to keep it quiet. Mr. Hope is sleeping in the next room.”
The Super Bowl XX final: Bears 46, Patriots 10.
This lent credence to the theory that there was a direct correlation between drinking up Bourbon Street and success in the Super Bowl.
Because that was the formula followed by Big Bad John Matuszak and the renegade Raiders in the days and nights leading up to their Super Bowl XV whipping of the Stalag 17 Dick Vermeil Eagles.
The Tooz, a day after announcing he would be the Raiders’ watchdog, showed up 40 minutes late and hung over for the media session.
“That’s why I was out in the streets,” Matuszak explained. “To make sure no one else was.”
After Jim Plunkett & Co. were finished with their demolition of the Eagles, the NFL’s worst nightmare unfolded — Commissioner Pete Rozelle forced to hand the Lombardi Trophy over to arch-nemesis Al Davis.
Between now and Super Bowl XLVII, corporate excess will collide head on with Mardi Gras revelry/debauchery. Another City That Never Sleeps overrun by fun-seeking partygoers who do not want to sleep, not as long as the bars are open all night and there is jazz playing and jambalaya and gumbo are on the menu. The city is bracing for three weeks of madness given that Carnival season has already begun. Mardi Gras Day is Feb. 12. It is why they are calling this confluence of decadence the Super Gras.
In other words, this is no place for a teetotaler … or a Tebow.
“The French Quarter is a playground for adults — not only can you party all night long, into the morn and the next afternoon, but you’ll be inundated with the aromas of southern cuisine and the very feel of the South,” Insight Magazine tells us.
When McMahon returned with the Packers for Super Bowl XXXI as backup quarterback, then-Packers coach Mike Holmgren solicited advice from him.
“He’s kind of filled me in on how to moon helicopters,” Brett Favre said.
Bill Parcells, determined to pick the groceries, spent much of the week plotting his exit strategy following an awkward press conference with Patriots owner Bob Kraft. It wasn’t long before Parcells, a 35-21 loser, would bolt to the Jets. The Tuna is up again for Hall of Fame induction Saturday night, and it would be criminal if he is denied again.
The Big Easy — which can morph into The Big Sleazy at a moment’s notice — is hosting a Super Bowl for the first time since Katrina. The last time was the Security Bowl, when the Superdome was transformed into a fortress five months after Sept. 11 and the Patriots, fittingly, became Super Bowl XXXVI champions with a monumental upset of the Kurt Warner Rams.
Colin Kaepernick, who like Brady replaced the starting quarterback that year albeit for different reasons — Drew Bledsoe had been knocked into irrelevance by Mo Lewis — gets his chance to be Brady exactly 10 years to the day later.
This will be the seventh time the Superdome has hosted the Super Bowl. I missed the first one — Cowboys 27, Broncos 10 in Super Bowl XII. I can attest to the power of the Hurricane — ironic name in this city — suffering the most debilitating hangover of my life after imbibing two of them the Friday night before Super Bowl XX. I listed me as doubtful as late as Saturday afternoon.