Students enjoy the big game
Every year until he went to college, Sam Peterson went to the same Super Bowl party with his parents, one they went to for the past 30 years.
This year for the Super Bowl, he watched it at a party with all his friends.
The New England Patriots faced off against the New York Giants last night in Super Bowl XLII.
Peterson, a senior Corporate Communications major, said his TV Criticism professor also made it an assignment for the students to watch the Super Bowl at a party and write a paper on it.
Peterson, who was wearing a Chicago Bears shirt, had a hard time choosing which team to root for.
“I guess the Giants because I always root for the underdog,” he said.
Holli Foster, a Charleston resident, said she was supporting the Giants but for a different reason than Peterson.
“I hate the Patriots,” she said.
For Kari Milliken, a senior Family and Consumer Sciences major, it was her first year trying to understand football, but it didn’t stop her from supporting the Patriots.
Kathleen Jacoby, a junior Political Science major, had different reasons to watch this year’s Super Bowl.
Jacoby said she was cheering for the Giants because her dad coached Dave Diehl, a guard for the Giants, at Brother Rice High School when he attended the school in Evergreen Park.
Jacoby said she decided to go to The Panther Paw to watch the game because it’s where her friends went.
According to Zack Hausner, a bartender at The Panther Paw, the crowd at the Paw for this year’s Super Bowl was half as big as last year.
“I think the teams last year drew in the crowds,” said Hausner, in reference to Super Bowl XLI with the Indianapolis Colts playing the Bears.
He said since there are so many Bears and Colts fans in the area, the Super Bowl was a bigger event last year.
He said the bar still had other waitresses and bartenders on call in case the bar got more business.
“We always plan ahead,” Hausner said.
The National Panhellenic Council also planned ahead by continuing the tradition they started last year of hosting a Super Bowl party.
Brianna Adams, a senior nursing major, is the event planner for NPHC. She said planning the party was simple: buy food, invite people via Facebook and get a TV.
Adams said one of the fraternity men let them borrow his TV for the game.
She said the game is good for people to get together with friends and enjoy some good food.
Rob Drews, a senior Corporate Communications major, seemed to agree with Adams.
“There’s nothing like Super Bowl Sunday to get together with your friends and watch the game,” he said.
Jered Sutton, a senior Sports Management major and childhood friend of Drews, was out celebrating with friends but said he hates the Super Bowl.
“It’s never an exciting match-up, and the commercials drive me crazy,” Sutton said.
Drews disagreed with his friend and said he loves the commercials because they’re entertaining and talked about for a while, sometimes more than the game.
While Peterson may have gone to the same party for many years, he likes the Super Bowl for a different reason in the different years.
This year Peterson said the commercials are his favorite because the outcome of the game seemed obvious, as the Giants came in as the major underdog.
However, the Giants pulled off the upset with a 17-14 come-from-behind win against the Patriots.
Sara Cuadrado can be reached at slcuadrado@eiu.edu or 581-7942.
Students enjoy the big game
Students and community members came to the Panther Paw to watch Superbowl XLII Sunday evening. (Bryce Peake
