Super Bowl

WASHINGTON - Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana said they improved his strength and posture. Celebrity Kim Kardashian boasted they allowed her to ditch her personal trainer. But federal and state officials said the rocker-bottom Shape-ups and other toning shoes made by Skechers USA Inc. don't live up to the hype from the company and its high-profile endorsers. On Wednesday, the Manhattan Beach company agreed to pay $50 million to settle false-advertising allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of 44 states, including California, as well as the District of Columbia.

Whenever he hunkered over the football, as he did for 12 seasons as center for the Los Angeles Rams, Rich Saul had a way of being not only ferocious but folksy. "Rich would get down over the ball, and there's the nose guard, and Rich is talking to him, wanting to know how his family and kids are doing," recalled former Rams guard Dennis Harrah with a laugh. "Next thing you know, Rich would be holding them up in the air, and I'd be cutting their legs out from under them. "This guy's wanting to kill us, and Rich comes up on the next play and he's wanting to talk to the guy about his family again.

The first thing you hear is quiet. The commercials, by design, are an oasis in the middle of a Sunday afternoon resonating with noisy stadiums and somebody screaming at you to buy a truck. "People getting up to get a beer notice that the TV has suddenly gone soft," said producer-director Mario Pellegrini. "They stop and say, 'What is that?' " The next thing you hear is the tinkling of a piano, or the moan of a violin, or, if the objective is big-time tears, music from the song, "Memories."

Reporting from Indianapolis -- A year ago, New York Jets Coach Rex Ryan made waves at the scouting combine when he guaranteed his team would win the Super Bowl. Ryan on Thursday raised eyebrows with what he wouldn't say. "I know what everybody is thinking, all right," the bombastic coach said in his opening comments at the podium. "The return to the infamous Super Bowl guarantee was here. … Looking back, obviously it was a huge mistake to make that guarantee. "At the time we were coming off two [AFC]

For professional football players, no other athletic achievement could possibly compare to winning a Super Bowl. Or could it? Former NFL running back Roger Craig says he's found one that's close: running a marathon. A four-time Pro Bowl player and three-time Super Bowl winner with the Joe Montana-era San Francisco 49ers, Craig has run five marathons and says the wave of euphoria that envelops him at the 26.2-mile mark is virtually second to none. "It's the most enjoyable feeling on the planet because it's something I did by myself," he says.

The final score, at least as far as Indianapolis is concerned: the Super Bowl Village welcomed 1.1-million visitors, and the NFL Experience exhibit/fest drew 265,039 to the Indiana Convention Center. And are ziplines now the must-have attraction for big events? Indy's drew 10,429 riders.  The economic impact to the city has not yet been released but reviews of Indy's Super Bowl performance have been glowing . . . . Among the interesting golf packages now being offered at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach is a 50-minute “Golfer's Massage,” which uses golf balls to apply specific friction, kneading and pressure maneuvers that relax  a golfer's muscles.

Ed Palladini has run a limousine company in Tampa for 27 years, accumulating a fleet of more than a dozen luxury cars, ranging from a basic Cadillac sedan to a plush Mercedes minibus that seats 14. Even now, during Super Bowl week, when Palladini's business should be booked solid, some of those beauties will not leave the lot. "I've got a car that hasn't moved in six months, but I've had to keep the insurance on it for the Super Bowl," he said.

Michael Jackson's career was in decline in January 1993, when the so-called "King of Pop" performed at halftime of the most recent Super Bowl played at the Rose Bowl. . . . Jackson's lip-syncing appearance was even less engrossing than the game, won by Troy Aikman and the Dallas Cowboys in a rout of the Buffalo Bills, and widely panned. . . .

With less than five weeks to go before the game, CBS has only four commercial spots left to sell during the Super Bowl broadcast -- demonstrating that advertisers once again will elbow each other to get into TV's biggest event of the year. But will they always rush onto the field of sponsorship? One of the NFL's biggest sponsors, PepsiCo, sent a shudder through the television industry last month when it said it was benching its soft drink ads after 23 years and tens of millions of dollars of air time during the championship games.

Admit it. You had no idea ESPN has 18 platforms. But they do and there is Super Bowl coverage on all of them. And this isn't even the network that is actually televising the game, so ESPN has to get creative. For example, Friday at 12:30 on the actual, original ESPN platform, Mike Tirico will host "SportsCenter." And not just any "SportsCenter," but a "SportsCenter Special: The Champions" with analysts who have won Super Bowl rings -- Tedy Bruschi, Mike Ditka, Trent Dilfer, Jon Gruden, Keyshawn Johnson, Matt Millen, Mark Schlereth and Steve Young.

When Bill Plaschke picked the winner of the Super Bowl, the Patriots, and told us we were all wrong, I knew the outcome. If only I had bet the house. Dang. Paul L. Hovsepian Sierra Madre :: Simply put, you can't spell "elite" without the E-L-I. Gino Cirignano Playa del Rey :: Age was the difference maker in Super Bowl 46 (I flunked math, so I can only count until III in Roman numerals). It was obvious that after a long break, age played a crucial part, making the field's biggest name look slow, hesitant, confused, tired and old. But enough about Madonna.

The Indiana State Department of Health sent out a statement Feb. 3, two days before the New England Patriots and the New York Giants squared off for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis.  The bulletin, which advised "Hoosiers and out-of-town guests" to "Practice Good Health Defense for a Safe Super Bowl Sunday," offered tips about healthful eating, drinking in moderation, keeping warm and storing party foods properly to avoid food-borne illnesses. Less than a week later, the department circulated another release that touched on a Super Bowl health hazard few had considered: measles, and the importance of vaccination.  State health officials reported two confirmed and two probable cases of the respiratory ailment.  One of infected individuals had attended pre-Super Bowl celebrations in downtown Indianapolis on Feb. 3 -- raising the alarming possibility that others at the event who were not up-to-date on their vaccinations or who had not had measles in the past could have been exposed to the virus as well.  That's a concern because measles is highly contagious, said Dr. Edgar Marcuse, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle who is based at Seattle Children's Hospital.

Within hours of creating one its most glorious moments, the pro sports world exposed one of its dirty little secrets. Hours after the New York Giants' dramatic Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday, the losing team threw a loud party where two key players, tight end Rob Gronkowski and tackle Matt Light, stripped off their shirts and joyfully danced onstage. The video went viral , and plenty of people got sick. Many Patriots fans couldn't understand it. A least one notable former Patriot couldn't accept it. "There's no reason for that to happen … it's not right," said former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison on ESPN Chicago Radio 1000.

Karl Rove claims Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl ad for Chrysler was a devious pitch to promote the Obama reelection campaign. Apparently the bulb-headed Pillsbury Doughboy of the political right thinks he's man enough to pick a fight with America's most virile octogenarian. Go ahead, Karl, make his day. In the sweepstakes for most memorable advertisement from Sunday's Super Bowl game, the Eastwood halftime ad was the clear winner. Gritty, moody, yet uplifting, the ad interspersed images of beleaguered but resilient Americans with shots of Eastwood walking toward the camera along a shadowy passageway.

The final score, at least as far as Indianapolis is concerned: the Super Bowl Village welcomed 1.1 million visitors, and the NFL Experience exhibit/fest drew 265,039to the Indiana Convention Center. And are ziplines now the must-have attraction for big events? Indy's drew 10,429 riders. The city¿s economic impact has not yet been released, but reviews of the city¿s Super Bowl performance have been glowing . . . . Among the many interesting golf packages now being offered at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach is a 50-minute “Golfer¿s Massage,” which uses golf balls to apply specific friction, kneading and pressure maneuvers that relax a golfer¿s muscles.

The final score, at least as far as Indianapolis is concerned: the Super Bowl Village welcomed 1.1-million visitors, and the NFL Experience exhibit/fest drew 265,039 to the Indiana Convention Center. And are ziplines now the must-have attraction for big events? Indy's drew 10,429 riders.  The economic impact to the city has not yet been released but reviews of Indy's Super Bowl performance have been glowing . . . . Among the interesting golf packages now being offered at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach is a 50-minute “Golfer's Massage,” which uses golf balls to apply specific friction, kneading and pressure maneuvers that relax  a golfer's muscles.

Those who plan to watch the Green Bay Packers take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, you'd better hope your team wins. Really. A new study suggests that being a fan of a losing Super Bowl team just might increase the risk of a fatal heart attack. The study published Monday in Clinical Cardiology looked at two Super Bowl games: one in which the L.A. Rams lost (1980) and one in which the Los Angeles Raiders won (1984). Researchers then looked at death rates in the Los Angeles area during the Super Bowl period.

PASSING LEADERS Saints Brees...9-10, 80 yards Colts Manning...7-8, 65 yards RECEIVING LEADERS Saints P. Thomas...2, 28 yards, TD Colts Clark...3, 45 yards RUSHING LEADERS Saints P. Thomas...3, 25 yards Colts Addai...3, 19 yards, TD Momentum: Saints grab momentum with a successful onside kick and a 59-yard touchdown drive for their first lead. The Colts took the momentum right back, however, using their no-huddle offense and responding with a 10-play, 76-yard TD drive.

Clint Eastwood has never been known as a man who had trouble making his meaning clear. So for many of those who were watching Sunday, the crusty, no-guff actor's Super Bowl ad delivered a plain message: America is staging a comeback, just like one of its big carmakers, Chrysler. It's anyone's guess whether the ad's soaring rhetoric and American-grit imagery will sell more Chrysler 300s or Town & Country minivans. But the two-minute spot immediately accomplished another, unintended goal — again forcing into high relief the nation's sharp political divide.

Another ratings record, another halftime controversy. What else could it have been but the Super Bowl? Sunday's NFL championship set another TV ratings record, the latest evidence that the Super Bowl has become the equivalent of a nationwide secular holiday, with all the attendant hoopla and partisan bickering one might expect. An average of 111.3 million total viewers tuned in to NBC's coverage, according to figures from Nielsen, watching the underdog New York Giants hold off the New England Patriots 21-17 in a seesaw match that went down to the final moments.