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Super Bowl? It's the Iba Bowl
Published: 1/24/2010 9:42 PM
Last Modified: 1/24/2010 9:46 PM

And the Super Bowl winner is.... the Rotary Club of Tulsa.
The Rotary Club of Tulsa is the group behind the Henry P. Iba Citizen-Athlete Awards, presented annually to male and female athletes who excel at their sport and show by their actions a desire to help others.
For the first time ever, a Super Bowl will match starting quarterbacks who are past Iba Award recipients. Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning won the award in 2002. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees was the Iba recipient last year.
Thought No. 1: Good guys don't always finish last, but one of them will have to finish second.
Thought No. 2: Thanks to the Rotary Club, some of the best athletes on the planet have dropped into town long enough to pick up an Iba trophy.
Thought No. 3: Beware Manning's handshake. He can crush walnuts with those mitts.
Thought No. 4: Manning called me for a pre-Iba interview while I was covering a state track meet. I told him I was swamped and could I please postpone. Sometimes, when dealing with star athletes who value their time over yours, this means end of interview. He agreed to call back later -- and did. Big time brownie points for Manning.
Thought No. 5: The pre-Iba Manning story was about how he grew up in New Orleans and somehow wasn't tainted by neighbors like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and vampire-loving author Anne Rice. Now Manning will play against his hometown team (the one his dad played for) in the Super Bowl.
Thought No. 6: I didn't think it was going to be possible to get a phone interview with Brees before the Iba Awards, but got a pleasant surprise while on vacation when his agent called out of the blue and said "I've got Drew for you today." I think I was standing in front of New York, New York or Excalibur in Las Vegas when the call came and the only thing I had to take notes on were scraps of paper in my pocket. Thankfully, a Tulsa World teammate agreed to do the interview for me. Brees (injured) and the city of New Orleans (post-Katrina) were both considered damaged goods when he arrived in the Big Easy. Both, obviously, got better.




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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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