TERPSTRA –This one’s for all the chips and salsa, at an extravagant price

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

I don’t know what’s in the spinach and artichoke dip in the hospitality suite of Hard Rock Stadium, but I want no part of it.

I’ll dip my chips elsewhere this Sunday.

Super models, celebrities and influential dignitaries from around the world will be pampered and pacified during one of the biggest parties money can buy this weekend.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday in T-minus 100 hours (cue NFL theme music).

Now whether or not diamond-encrusted ladles will drizzle your plate of nachos at a Hard Rock luxury box from a river of cheese sauce strewn with gold flakes is probably only up for the rich and famous to find out.

My bank account is not willing to investigate the matter.

I’ll stick to my frozen egg rolls and prepackaged Lil’ Smokies smothered in barbecue sauce, thank you very much.

Little toothpicks come separately.

Because that’s how I party – Super Bowl style. (Minus the $5,000 price tag).

Super Bowl LIV (54) is this coming Sunday. The football contest will be held at a big sports arena near the sandy white oceanic shoreline of South Beach.

That’s in Florida, in case you wondered. You know the state that made us annoyingly aware of “hanging chads” on indecipherable voting ballots in the Presidential Election of 2000.

The Super Bowl is one of the world’s biggest sporting events and the most-watched American television broadcast of the year. The Battle Royale is scheduled to kickoff in sunny Miami at Hard Rock Stadium at 5:30 p.m. (CST).

The winner gets all the bags of Tostitos they can stockpile (at least according to Brent Musburger) and raises the Vince Lombardi Trophy in triumph.

It’s the “Big Game.” The “Big Enchilada.” The winner takes a trip to Disneyland, which won’t be that far of a trek if you remain in state and continue tailgating in the parking lot area after the game.

Whoops! I forgot, the Super Bowl does not allow tailgating.

Why, you might ask?

Because the NFL wants your money, that’s why.

I’m not too concerned about the party atmosphere, but I sure like to talk about it. I’m more interested in the game itself because this one’s for all the chips and salsa – hold the guacamole and sour cream, please.

The Super Bowl, first and foremost, is a professional football contest between the champions of the National Football Conference (NFC) and American Football Conference (AFC).

But it’s a whole lot more than that.

Americans eat more food on this day than any other occasion, sans Thanksgiving.

Oh, and the commercials in between breaks from the actual football action that everybody can’t wait to see?

Those gems will cost advertisers $5.6 million for a 30-second time slot. That’s almost $187,000 a second. Ouch!!!!

That same air time for Super Bowl I would run you around $40,000 in 1967. Tickets for the first ever Super Bowl set you back a paltry $12 for the priciest seat (non-scalper price). Compare that to the lowest ticket price of $4,000 now just to get you inside the stadium and it’s easy to see how money talks when you want to rub shoulders in these highfalutin circles.

But, heck, that ticket allows you the chance to witness so much more.

Like the halftime entertainment – Jennifer Lopez (J.Lo) and Shakira.

I can’t wait.

The clock is ticking up until the coin flip because I’ve been waiting a lifetime for this particular event – literally.

This Super Bowl will have a completely different feel for me personally.

My Kansas City Chiefs will be taking on the San Francisco 49ers.

Yes, I’m a Chiefs fan.

A long, suffering one at that.

It’s been 50 years since the Chiefs last played in the big game when they won their only championship over the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7, in Super Bowl IV.

Kansas City lost to the Green Bay Packers, 35-10, in the first ever Super Bowl. That inaugural Super Bowl was played to a non-sellout crowd of almost 62,000 that sat and watched the halftime entertainment in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Over 33,000 tickets went unsold for the game – which featured a trumpeter, 300 pigeons, 10,000 balloons, college marching bands and the Bell Rocket Air Men flying around for halftime entertainment.

Sounds quaint.

I wanted to finish with this.

In addition to being a loyal Kansas City Chiefs for well over 35 years, I’m also a Los Angeles Lakers fan.

I remember as a kid growing up in the 80s watching Magic Johnson and Larry Bird duke it out on the hardwood.

The memories will last me a lifetime.

The same can be said about another Laker legend – Kobe Bryant.

I went and saw him play up in Minneapolis in 2004 – the only regular season NBA game I have ever attended in person. I also went and watched Michael Jordan in an exhibition game versus the Milwaukee Bucks one year at Veterans Auditorium in Des Moines in the mid-80s.

A lot of people compared Kobe to Michael. But they were from different eras and one can’t compare apples to oranges. Excellent and transcendent talent is superior and almost seems flawless any way you slice it.

Kobe tragically passed away this past Sunday at the age of just 41 years old.

I understand his reach and the tremendous positive impact he had on millions of people’s lives.

He also wasn’t a saint and was filled with flaws.

That cannot be denied.

I choose to celebrate people’s accomplishments instead of always finding the worst part about a person like this cancel culture seems to feed off of nowadays.

But I loved watching him play. Anybody that understands and appreciates basketball can’t deny that fact – whether you hated him or not.

He was special.

But gone too soon.

I think he was a good father and above all else that’s what people should remember most about him.

Not all the dunks, the championship rings or the flashy moves that made headlines.

Kobe is a human being just like the rest of us and we’re not here forever.

But he made his mark and loved competing in his chosen profession.

We were better for having witnessed his greatness.

I can only imagine what he could have accomplished had he been granted another 50 years to live on this planet.

Heck, he was an Oscar winner.

But we only get to stay here for what is really only a flicker in time.

He will be missed and forever remembered.

Mamba out.