I'm not sure if there is an ickier feeling as a sports reporter than heading into a losing locker room.

It turns out losing locker rooms are bad everywhere, but the Super Bowl losing locker room is especially ugly. When you reach the epic stage of your sport and are about to be crowned a world champion and fail, that's a special kind of pain. And microphones and cameras certainly don't help you deal with it. This is not to say this is the worst situation a reporter can be in by any stretch. When I was a police reporter, interviewing homicide victims' families was far worse. Still, it the Chicago Bears' postgame locker room and interviews in the media area weren't pretty. To add insult to injury, the guys had to listen to part of the Colts postgame celebration while answering reporters' questions in a mass interview area because NFL officials forgot to turn off the live feed to the field being piped into the area. Very nice touch.

Big Brian Urlacher handled the drama as well as could be expected. Better, in fact, if you hold him to the Peyton Manning standard from last year. This year's Super Bowl MVP was the same guy who threw his teammates under the bus last year when they lost in the playoffs. Urlacher lost the Super Bowl this year but met him midfield after the game to congratulate him and didn't lash out at his teammates. Urlacher could have just obliterated Rex Grossman for his Rextastic play, but he didn't.

Check out Monday's Tribune for a last shot of Super Bowl coverage from South Floirda. I'll also have some photo galleries up soon on the Trib's Web site with images from inside the stadium and Urlacher's postgame interview.

Posted by ilimon at 10:45 PM | Permalink