Supporting the Local Team Tops His List of Priorities

By T.J. Simers

Feb. 1, 2005 12 AM PT

A year ago I tried talking my way out of the Super Bowl and avoiding the week of numbing pregame hype to stay here, and work as a ball boy for the LA Temptation during the Lingerie Bowl.

I don’t know how we can expect to get an NFL team if we don’t support the football teams we already have here.

Sports Editor Bill Dwyre rejected my request, though, and said he wanted me at the Super Bowl in case there was some kind of wardrobe malfunction.

When it comes to Justin Timberlake, it just seems as if Dwyre has always been one step ahead of the kid -- well, except for Britney Spears, of course.

This year the NFL has invited Paul McCartney to perform, but as skittish as the NFL is these days, I’m pretty sure he won’t be singing the old Beatles’ tune: “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?”

Last year’s halftime revelation by Janet Jackson led to fines ranging from $27,500 to $550,000 for each of the 20 CBS-owned stations that aired the Super Bowl, and a sweeping crackdown on sex on radio and TV by the FCC.

(I’m not surprised, of course, that it led to “Desperate Housewives.”)

THE FUNNY thing about last year’s halftime entertainment is that Jackson revealed more than any one of the competitors in the Lingerie Bowl, and knowing these competitors as I do now, I’m pretty sure each and every one of them is going to take that as a challenge.

That’s why I will not be going to Jacksonville; someone needs to stay on top of this story. I attended Monday’s news conference at the Coliseum and interviewed the Temptation’s quarterback, running back and wide receiver. I ran out of time, so I never got to the tight end.

“The Temptation is L.A.’s football team,” said running back Jai Bjorge. “The Raiders left us, the Rams left us, but we’re here and ready to play.”

I’ve covered a lot of teams in my sportswriting career, and based on my experience, the Temptation had the best group of talent I’ve ever seen. I spent a lot of time with the Chargers, though, so almost anyone would look better by comparison.

The Lingerie Bowl will be available on pay-per view for $14.95, and that’s why The Times provides its employees with an expense account.

This year’s event will be a two-hour production with three football games and Chingy will perform. Man, woman or child, I’m sure it will be a great performance.

“The meat of the show will be on at halftime of the Super Bowl,” said Lingerie Bowl creator Mitch Mortaza, and I don’t think he was talking about Chingy, but I can’t be sure. “This year the girls won’t be wearing helmets or shoulder pads,” and so you can see where this is going.

Mortaza said the LA Temptation earned a berth in this year’s Lingerie Bowl because it won last year’s game, which is interesting because last year Team Dream took on Team Euphoria. You have to get up pretty early in the morning and not dress that way to slip something by me.

Mortaza invited me to work the sidelines for this year’s Lingerie Bowl, and the quarterback, wide receiver and running back each told me they couldn’t wait to see me Sunday at the game.

It was only later when I learned the Lingerie Bowl had already been played -- last Saturday on a Hollywood sound stage to allow organizers to prepackage the event -- that it dawned on me: Had I gone to the game Sunday, I’d have been all alone with only the wife.

I’M NOW told there’s more halftime competition for your money, and a $14.95 pay-per view opportunity to see the “Girls Gone Wild Halftime Games.”

I got a press release for the “Girls Gone Wild Halftime Games” shoved under my door at work, while I’m told Dwyre took the Girls Gone Wild baseball cap home. (I know his wife; he won’t have it for long.)

I talked to publicist Allison Johnston and she says four teams will be competing in tug of war, the trampoline and the bucking bed.

I was kind of curious how the scoring might go in the bucking bed competition, but the publicist was laughing so hard I couldn’t get an answer. I just can’t see putting down The Times’ money if these girls aren’t going to take this more seriously.

ERIN JOHNSON e-mailed from Nashville with the story about the female co-owner of the Nashville Rhythm of the American Basketball Assn., trying to fire the team’s coach while the game was still being played.

“Just thought as a Dodger fan in Nashville I would share with you our own Screaming Meanie,” Johnson wrote.

DONNA LOGAN, mother of three, a fifth-grade schoolteacher in the Corona area and wife of Centennial High’s football coach, has been battling breast cancer and recently received word that she has been accepted for experimental treatment at Duke University.

Scott Fairfield e-mailed to say the “Logan family is facing incredible odds, and yet they remain the most giving and upbeat people we know.”

The cost of treatment and the time necessary away from work is going to make it difficult financially on the Logans, so Fairfield has organized a poker fund-raiser at Lamppost Pizza in Yorba Linda on Friday night to help the family.

Those interested in competing in the poker tournament for prizes, as well as helping the family, can send inquiries to: [email protected].

RAN INTO Charger quarterback Drew Brees at the Hope Classic and gave him a chance for an “I told you so,” but he passed on it, saying, “I knew I could get the job done.”

I told him that every time he said such a thing, “I just figured he was full of it,” which prompted Marcus Allen, who was eavesdropping, to throw a fit.

“How could anyone say that to somebody’s face?” Allen huffed. “I can’t believe that. I just can’t believe that you said that to someone.”

Apparently Allen would prefer such things be said behind a player’s back.

TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from James Spencer:

“You never write anything nice about the Clippers.”

The who?

T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.