Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Tuesday, January 14, 1997

Super Bowl jinx?
Don’t bet against it

IF you're a Green Bay fan, just hope that Packers quarterback Brett Favre isn't on this week's cover of Sports Illustrated. The Packers might be 14-point favorites over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans on Jan. 26, but I wouldn't bet against the SI jinx.

You saw what happened to the Denver Broncos when their quarterback, John Elway, was the magazine's main cover-feature the week when they played - and lost - to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC upset of the season.

Then last week SI put both Jacksonville's Mark Brunell and Kerry Collins of the Carolina Panthers on the cover. Talk about a double whammy. Chalk up two more quarterback sacks for the magazine.

Me? For once, this will be a dispassionate Super Bowl. My Dallas Cowboys aren't involved. There will be no cheering in the press box for me. I don't care who wins, as long as there are some great stories out of New Orleans on Super Sunday.

Of course, a Green Bay victory has its merits:

Keeping the NFC's winning streak intact, making it 13-0 and counting.

Finally winning the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named in honor of the franchise's great coach, who had won the first two Super Bowls.

Reggie White getting his prayers answered - his first championship ring of any kind.

Say, you don't suppose Sports Illustrated will have a picture of Reggie on its cover this or next week, do you?

Then again, a victory for New England can lead to some great story lines of its own:

The AFC finally ending its 12-game losing streak to the NFC.

And who better to do it than the Patriots' Bill Parcells, who has accounted for two of those 12 NFCwins when he coached the New York Giants to Super Bowl victories over Denver and Buffalo.

Parcells could become the first to coach two different winning teams in the Super Bowl. And wouldn't it be something if Parcells wins and then takes over the New York Jets and coaches them to the Super Bowl?

Boy, that would be worth a couple of Sports Illustrated covers.

Then, for Hawaii fans, a Patriot win would provide the best local angle - former Maryknoll star Pio Sagapolutele getting a Super Bowl championship ring.

Nobody's happier that Sagapolutele has a chance to win that Super Bowl ring than his former Pac-Five coach, Don Botelho.

"We're all proud of him and happy that he has the opportunity to play in the Super Bowl," Botelho said. "He always had a good head on his shoulders. He's really a soft-spoken guy and he's aggressive only on the football field."

SAGAPOLUTELE, a 6-foot-6, 297-pound defensive tackle, started three years for Pac-Five, which beat Waianae, 56-7, in the 1985 Prep Bowl in his junior year. Also on that team was quarterback Garrett Gabriel, who later starred for the University of Hawaii.

Sagapolutele opted for San Diego State. "Going to San Diego State really helped to mature and polish him," Botelho said.

A three-year starter and All-WAC player for the Aztecs, Sagapolutele was drafted in the fourth round by the Cleveland Browns in 1991. After five years with the Browns, Sagapolutele became an unrestricted free agent and signed with the Patriots.

Influential in luring Sagapolutele was his former Cleveland head coach Bill Belichick, who's now Parcells' top assistant.

Pio's the fifth player from Hawaii's prep ranks to suit up for the Patriots. The other four? Russ Francis, Mosi Tatupu, Paul Dombroski and John Simerson.

Sagapolutele, who has seven brothers and four sisters, plans to return to Hawaii after his playing days and volunteer his time working with low-income families.