This year I decided to forego my normal Super Bowl ritual of chicken wings, pizza, nachos, and Bud Light. Why any warm-blooded American would go without those most basic of food groups is surely perplexing, but I swear I do have a good reason for it. You see, this year I had the opportunity to be part of the on-the-field crowd during the Super Bowl halftime show (as well as the pre-game show).

Now, you'd think that having 1,600 people running frantically toward the halftime stage would be an easy task to organize, but I promise you that there actually was a lot of organization involved in that seemingly small task. First of all, some of you may be surprised that none of the crowd on the field are ticket holders for the game. Everybody is a volunteer, except for the halftime choreographers and producers. For the halftime show, the on-the-field cast had to meet a week before the event, and the ensuing week was filled with over 12 hours of rehearsals. What did we do for most of those rehearsals? Well, we sat, we waited, we joked, we yelled (concert-style yelling), we sang along to Tom Petty songs, we practiced our arm waving, we sat some more, and we played Texas Hold ‘Em. As boring as that may sound, it actually was a lot of fun. My group (the rockin' "J" group) was a lively bunch, and by far the loudest of all the groups. Each group in turn was full of individual teams that had signed up for the event. The team next to mine went by the name of Mascot Group and was full of great people and a few of their members (Courtney, Tamika, and Judy) kept us smiling the entire time. I should also mention that I now owe my team members Scott and Joe a combined $16 million (or thereabouts) from my horrible poker playing abilities (it seems it's difficult to bluff when you're not playing with real money). I hope by mentioning their names in this article that they'll forgive my debt. Seems fair enough at least.

As far as the event itself; on the morning of the Super Bowl everybody met offsite around 10am and, after they got everybody organized, we were loaded into school buses and given a police escort to the stadium. Now, there's something oddly pleasing about having your own police escort, and if you ever get the opportunity to be part of one I fully recommend it (as long as you're not actually being chased by the police, but even then I'm sure it'd make for a great story). Seriously, being allowed to drive around miles of stop and go traffic is very gratifying.

Now you may be wondering what the key tasks are that we in the crowd had to accomplish (or, you may not even be aware that we had tasks to accomplish at all). The tasks were actually pretty simple:
1. Get onto the field quickly;
2. Run to your spot without injuring anyone;
3. Look very excited to be at the concert;
4. Sing along to the choruses;
5. Point your flashlight backward (seriously, we pointed the lights backwards so they'd show up on TV) toward the cameras during the 3rd song ("Free Fallin'"); and
6. Get off the field very quickly once the concert is over.

Most of those tasks went smoothly enough, although it should be noted that most people have no idea how to run without slowing everyone else down. In fact, one of the funniest moments of my involvement with this event was when someone ran onto the practice field, fell, and got tangled with a safety cone. But even that wasn't the top moment of the event. What could possibly beat the hilarity of someone fighting a safety cone with hundreds of people running around them (not to mention the awesomeness of being on the field at the Super Bowl and watching Alicia Keys and Tom Petty perform from such a close proximity)? How about a classic example of what not to do in a port-a-potty! About an hour before the pre-game concert with Alicia Keys, those of us waiting outside were entertained with the sight of a person who dropped something in the toilet. In fact, it would seem that the item was so important that she decided it was worth going "all-in" to retrieve it. After wrapping her arm in plastic wrap (quite a few times as you might imagine), she reached in, grabbed hold of her item, and put it into a plastic baggy. The item that was worth all that trouble? A cell phone! So if you've ever wondered what item would be worth digging into a port-a-potty for, mystery solved.