Editor’s note: The editorial boards of The Denver Post and The Charlotte Observer agreed to engage in a little trash talk leading up to Super Bowl 50. Post editorial writer Jeremy Meyer took up the challenge, wielding his pen against The Observer’s Taylor Batten. Read Batten’s column .
For important football contests, it is much better when you can’t stand your rival.
In Denver, fans love to hate the Oakland Raiders, Kansas City Chiefs and the Seattle Seahawks. We don’t like the teams, their cities or their fans. We do love those games, especially those that end in victory.
But the Carolina Panthers? What’s to hate? The teams have played only four times (with the Broncos winning three). And Carolina, like New England, has to gather up more than one state to be relevant enough to host a football team.
The Panteras wear a charming powder blue on their uniforms; their players hand footballs to children after touchdowns; and they represent an entire region that epitomizes Southern hospitality.
Where can a fired-up Broncos fan direct his ire?
And that raises a question: What is Carolina? It’s not a state or a city, only a concept that singer James Taylor can’t seem to get out of his mind.
We know North Carolina was home to the fictional television town of Mayberry, where, gosh darn it, Aunt Bee has a pecan pie on the windowsill, Opie is barefoot by the fishing hole and Andy is waiting for a haircut from Floyd the barber.
That doesn’t exactly bring to mind smash-mouth football.
Yet, the Mayberry Pussycats are supposedly fierce competitors, losing only one game this season and handily vanquishing their National Football Conference competitors. Even more impressive: The team was led by a quarterback who still proudly wears Zubaz pants.
Charlotte, where the Kitty Cats play their home games, isn’t an easy target for smack talk in the way of Cleveland, Detroit or Walla Walla. So we asked Denver Post staffers with ties to the South about their impressions.
From the paper’s resident Southerner, Joey Bunch: “Charlotte should be named ‘Seinfeld,’ because it’s a city about nothing. … Tobacco is considered a vegetable. The state bird is a mosquito. The Wright Brothers invented the airplane — and the plane crash — at Kitty Hawk. And it’s a great place to visit … if you’re a hurricane.”
(He’s here all week, folks.)
From feature writer and former North Carolinian William Porter: “Charlotte is overrun with Jaycees and Junior Leaguers, folks on the make whose kids’ first names sound like most people’s last names. Taylor, Porter, Payne, Ellington — and those are just the girls.”
Charlotte is home to the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the Billy Graham Library, and its football team is owned by the guy who created Hardee’s, maybe America’s fifth-favorite burger-and-fries fast-food empire.
As a contrast, Colorado has conquering mountains, more than 300 craft breweries, and enough legal marijuana to make Cam Newton’s wardrobe start to make a little sense.
But the most notable difference is football.
The Denver Broncos were established 56 years ago, compared to the Tomcats’ 1995 entry. The Broncos’ eight Super Bowl appearances are tied for the most with Pittsburgh and Dallas, and Denver won two of those — compared to Carolina’s lone Super Bowl loss. (Make that two after Sunday’s game.)
There is one thing that would rile the blood of the Broncos’ faithful: if the Mayberry Mousers somehow found a way to spoil what is likely Peyton Manning’s retirement party.
But we know that won’t happen. It would not be proper Southern hospitality. What would Aunt Bee think?
This is the last column by Jeremy Meyer, who has taken a job with the state of Colorado.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit or check out our for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
