What's That Smell? Jacksonville

By Tony Kornheiser

Wednesday, January 26, 2005; Page D01


Right after Chad Lewis caught that touchdown pass with about four minutes to go, the touchdown that cemented the victory and ensured the Philadelphia Eagles would be in the Super Bowl, some guy in the stands joyfully held up a sign that said, "We're Going To Jacksonville."

And I thought: What on earth is second prize? You have to build there?

How did Jacksonville get the Super Bowl? What, Tuscaloosa was booked?

If going to Jacksonville for a week is the reward New England and Philadelphia get for being the best teams in the NFL this year, Peyton Manning ought to be happy he didn't get there. Imagine how Manning would have felt, having to play all year in Indianapolis, and then landing in Jacksonville? Which gods would he have offended to get that killer quinella?

The NFL must see itself as handing out some sort of charity when it awards the Super Bowl to any place other than New Orleans, Miami and Southern California. Because, believe me, nobody wants the game to be anywhere but there. So when the NFL insists on putting it in outposts like Detroit, Houston or Minneapolis, people ask, "Are you guys nuts?" But when you pick Jacksonville, people are agape and say, "Who in Jacksonville has a photo of Tagliabue with a goat?"

At least these other places are big cities, with some history and a longtime affiliation with the NFL, as opposed to Jacksonville, which has now been in the league for about 15 minutes. Detroit is where American cars are made, and where Motown music originated. Minneapolis-St. Paul is the home of 3M and General Mills. Houston is the home of NASA, and, thanks to Enron, the gold standard in white-collar corporate crime. Jacksonville is what? (I'm just taking a shot here, Tony, a dump? No. Cut that out. It's a 'Ville! The only good 'Ville is a Coupe de Ville.)

Have you ever been to Tampa? It's heaven, if you like Waffle Houses.

Jacksonville makes Tampa look like Paris!

Jacksonville has this one great thing, the TPC course with the island green on No. 17. (Which is actually in Ponte Vedra.) And the rest of it can be described with this phrase, "Welcome to Hooters."

People in Jacksonville will be very upset with this piece. They will say it's a cheap shot by an effete Northerner who didn't want to be the 28th person on his own paper to write about how great and smart and handsome Tom Brady is. (Which is true, but come on, we kid because we love.) They will yell and scream that their city is hardly a backwater -- it's the 14th largest city by population in the country! Yes, and that's because it's the largest city by area by far. It's an octopus. It's 840 square miles! It takes in almost all of northeast Florida. If Jacksonville annexes all of southern Georgia, it could maybe crack the population top 10.

The NFL will tell you Jacksonville is a warm-weather site because it's in Florida. But Jacksonville is barely in Florida. It gets cold in Jacksonville. Yesterday morning, the low was 31 degrees. That's below freezing, boys and girls. That's cold enough that you need to keep the space heater turned on in the double-wide. And Jacksonville is 20 miles from the beach. Jacksonville is one of the smallest and most remote stops in the NFL. Green Bay is smaller and more remote. But Green Bay has Lombardi, Starr, Favre and the frozen tundra. Jacksonville has a Dairy Queen.

Jacksonville may be in Florida technically. But this isn't South Beach, gang. It isn't the home of Gloria Estefan, Enrique Iglesias and Luther Campbell. Jacksonville is where Pat Boone was born (sometime around the Martin Van Buren presidency), and where the Southern hair band .38 Special got together. Somehow it doesn't sound like hip-hop. It's more like I-Hop.

My friend Tony Reali, "Stat Boy" on the "PTI" show, flew to Jacksonville a few months ago to emcee some dopey trivia contest. And when he walked off the plane, he got a whiff of something that almost brought him to his knees -- it was Jacksonville -- and he made the not uncommon observation, "This place smells."

"I am from Staten Island, and I have lived in New Jersey," Reali explained. "I know bad smells. This was right below Secaucus."

Not as bad as Staten Island?

"Nothing approaches Staten Island," Reali said with conviction.

The next day, while appearing on a national radio show with Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald, Reali announced, "Jacksonville stinks," and asked Le Batard if it smelled that bad in Miami.

My friend Mike Freeman, who used to work here at The Post and now writes a column in Jacksonville, heard the show and went wild. He called Reali "Stat Jerk" and "Stat Punk," and chided him for slandering fair Jacksonville (named for Andrew Jackson, who, by the way, never actually set foot in it -- he was probably waiting on the beach). In his column Freeman said Reali's salvo was probably the first of many that would be fired at Jacksonville now that it was getting ready to host the Super Bowl.

Get used to it, brothers and sisters, Freeman wrote, this is what they're all going to do.

Brady, table for five. Brady, table for five. Welcome to Applebee's. Eatin' good. In the neighborhood.

Yikes!



© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Ehhh...redneck journalist writes about city he NEVER visited.It turns out this "dud" never visited Jacksonville but drove thru on 95..otherwise would know Jacksonville is ON beach not 20 miles from it,since Jax runs some 30miles by 25miles so it can be counfusing for some people from small towns.
31 degrees weather usually last between 4 and 5 AM not enough for plants to freeze....and that smell everyone is complaning is Maxwell coffee house in downtown....Who hates smell of fresh coffee????

I live in usptate NY and Ive met more rednecks,racists and stuborn people then in Jacksonville and this guy proves that again and again.
Jacksonville is beatifull place to live unless you are uneducated redneck.
Funny thing is how this writer shut up when he was called on phone by local station to explain his article.
I wonder how much some people can be hatefull to write stupid articles like this...at least if he visited Jacksonville to say something about it...

I meant to say I lived in upstate NY.I am from Europe and traveled half US and I have to say Jacksonville is one of top most beuatifull cities in US.
As far as Tony Kornheiser we should set up little charity for him so we can send him to Miami for a week...that may cool him off a bit.

That interview was pretty funny. Especially when it was learned that this guy has never visited the city. Anyway, I expect many more of these bashing editorials to come out. What will be interesting is what people write after they come and leave next week.

here's a positive editorial from the Orlando Sentinel.

Super tally: Orlando dallies; Jacksonville does
Published January 28, 2005

This is a very bad time to be a sports columnist in Orlando.

I feel like I'm standing outside the big columnist party, nose pressed against the glass, watching the other scribes laughing and joking and having a blast at Jacksonville's expense.

"How did Jacksonville get the Super Bowl?" lampooned Tony Kornheiser, a columnist for the Washington Post and co-host of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, earlier this week. "What, Tuscaloosa was booked? . . . Who in Jacksonville has a photo of Paul Tagliabue with a goat?"

Kornheiser claims Jacksonville does not have the sophistication to host a Super Bowl, which seems sort of odd coming from a guy who wears a turban on TV and yells a lot.

But, hey, Kornheiser can ridicule Jacksonville with impunity for one very good reason: He doesn't write in Orlando.

In Orlando, we don't put down Jacksonville; we look up to Jacksonville. We don't disparage our northern neighbors; we envy them. We don't call Jacksonville names; we just call Jacksonville, "Daddy."

Here's all you need to know: As Jacksonville gets ready for its Super Bowl next weekend, guess what big sports happening will be in Orlando this weekend? It's called "The Super Bowl of Motorsports," but actually it's just a glorified name for a tractor pull. Jacksonville gets the real Super Bowl; we get the Monster Truck Super Bowl.

Wooo-Weee, Merle, did you see that ol' boy flip his F-250 with the posi-traction rear end? He's so dumb he couldn't find his behind with both hands and a coon dog.

"The Monster Trucks are extremely popular here," confirmed Allen Johnson, director of the Orlando Centroplex. "We're expecting about 60,000 at the Citrus Bowl."

Need we say more?

This is why the rip-Jacksonville reindeer games will proceed without any notable input from this Orlando columnist. Let the writers from New York and Boston take shots at Jacksonville if they must, but not me. I used to live in Jacksonville; I know how hard that city worked and how much money it spent to become a sports town.

Would Orlando be a better spot for the Super Bowl? Of course, it would. We have a zillion hotels, an internationally renowned airport and infinitely more entertainment options. But Jacksonville has something more important: Vision.

Ignore the insults, Jacksonville. Be proud of where you came from and what you've become. Stand tall. You are a Super city, no matter what the knuckleheads say or write.

Jacksonville shouldn't be laughed at by the nation's media, it should be lauded. Jacksonville is what all sports writers say they love: The ultimate underdog story. It's the Rocky and Rudy of sports cities. It is the little town that could. And did.

Orlando dreams; Jacksonville does.

Orlando wanted an NFL team at one time; Jacksonville went out and got one.

Orlando wants a new downtown arena; Jacksonville just built one.

Orlando wants a minor-league baseball park downtown; you should see the one Jacksonville just built.

Orlando put in a half-hearted bid to get the Atlantic Coast Conference football championship; Jacksonville put in a serious bid and got the game.

"Jacksonville makes Tampa look like Paris!" Kornheiser wrote.

Unfortunately, as a sports town, Jacksonville makes Orlando look like Peoria.

Heck, we can't even make fun of Jacksonville's reputed love affair with Waffle House and Hooters. According to the Waffle House customer service hotline, Orlando and Jacksonville each has seven Waffle Houses. And are you ready for this? According to the Hooters Web site, Jacksonville has just four Hooters locations; Orlando has six.

So now you know why I'm going to leave the roasting of Jacksonville to other columnists. I have more important things to write about. Now if you'll excuse me.

Hey, Merle, did you see that wheelie?

Mike Bianchi can be reached at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com

I had a good time at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville and the weather was nice. He's just mad the Super Bowl isn't in D.C.

Is there a link to a video of that interview by chance?

http://www.news4jax.com/video/4135328/detail.html

Or you can go to www.jacksonville.com. The link there, is under the super bowl section on the home page.

It's amazing what some will say regarding a city they've never been to. Especially when it's all easily proven false. Sure he does it for the traffic it generates and the exsposure he's getting from it, as in this thread and more, but to do so in such an unethical and blatantly ignorant fashion baffles me.

It reminds me of Woody Paige's article in Jan '97 when he lashed out at Jacksonville and the Jaguars who were playing against the heavily favored Broncos in the Playoffs.

He ate a super-sized serving of humble pie directly after the game. History has a way of repeating itself and Jacksonville is baking another pie.

It's hard to change people's perceptions about Jacksonville. For decades, everyone driving south on I-95 had to hold their nose as they went through Jax because of the pollution from the paper mill factories.

I think they cleaned up their environmental problems, somewhat, but old perceptions die hard.

He's also right that Jacksonville is the most conservative part of the state. It's clearly the most "southern" big city in Florida in culture and that is clearly not everyone's cup of tea.

He's also right that Jacksonville is the most conservative part of the state. It's clearly the most "southern" big city in Florida in culture and that is clearly not everyone's cup of tea.

After being here a year, after spending 20 years living in various parts of Central Florida, I believe the most "southern big city" in Florida thing is blown way out of proportion too. The people and culture here seem to be exactly the same as that of Tampa and Orlando. The main difference is those places are twice the size of Jax in metro population.

At least Jax's stadium is DT. Tampa's is still off Dale Mabry, where it clogs traffic and does NOTHING to enrich the city.

I bet when they're done witht he Superbowl, that Jax will have a produced a better Superbowl than Tampa, were it not the hotel room thing, which does suck. (but this isn't really Jax's fault. Your metro simply doesn't need ten million resort style hotel rooms)