Super Bowl Sunday has arrived, and while I love watching this greatest of American traditions and am so excited about this year’s matchup, something else has been on my mind this week …

Youth league basketball.

I know it’s random. But no, I’m not kidding.

Last week, I got an invitation from my Ithaca-dwelling uncle to come to my 11-year-old cousin’s sixth grade basketball game.

And so, bright and early (at least for me) on Saturday, my uncle picked me up around noon and we went to the local elementary school where the game would be held. The games were running a little late, so we settled in and watched some of the fourth grade game too.

I have nothing against the winter — well at least not against the winters back in New York City. But on a day like Wednesday, when the snow was raising hot chocolate sales, skidding cars along College Avenue and diminishing even further my desire to make the snowy slog to class, I more and more wish I was in Tampa. Why Tampa? Well, for one thing, it’s warm. Two, the Super Bowl is being held there this Sunday. Three, see reason number one. The dream of going to the Super Bowl this year to watch the Giants go back-to-back is, of course, crushed, faded, non-existent. Instead, I’ll be watching it somewhere in Collegetown, trying to ignore the fact that the Giants beat both of the Bowl’s teams at some point during the regular season.

Now, I don’t want anyone to take this the wrong way, but I love, love, LOVE Jeomi Maduka. Yes, Jeomi, you are pretty much my hero. I think you’re the next FloJo, Lisa Leslie and Marion Jones, all wrapped up in one slightly shorter, steroid-free, highly-educated package. In fact, last semester, I wrote the story about you when you were selected by The Sun as 2008’s Athlete of the Year. I see you around campus, walking with your friends between classes or on your way to a workout, and all I want to do is run up to you and ask you to sign my snow boots.

But I don’t.

Meredith just spilled for the first time. It’s 9:15 p.m.

In the wee hours of the morning, while the sun shone brightly on the other half of the world, a couple thousand Long Islanders sat in their cars in silent anticipation. The cars were neatly packed into a dark parking lot, every here and there one illuminated by the eerie glow of a lamppost. The fenders sat a little lower than usual in these first moments of the day after Thanksgiving, as most bellies were still stuffed to unusual dimensions with turkey and pumpkin pie. Floor mats were littered with the pages of a Wal-Mart flyer that had long been committed to the memory of every shopper. Visions of $69 digital cameras and $28 vacuums danced in their heads.

I woke up yesterday morning and sat bolt upright from the cushy, puke-green sofa in my living room I had fallen asleep on earlier that night (morning?). Something was definitely not right. I pulled the notes I was using to write a rather fabulous English essay (due in approximately three hours) from my face and took stock of my emotions.

What was this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach? Could it be that third helping of my Jersey cousins’ stuffing from Saturday afternoon, rising ominously up from the depths? Perhaps it was the caffeine pills — I mean tic-tacs — I’d been popping like an addict for the past nine hours?

Standing in the middle of Section B as the final minutes ticked off Lynah’s scoreboard on both Friday and Saturday night, I felt a nostalgic electricity reverberating through the student sections that seeped its way around the rink. I imagined that Lynah Rink once bore witness to this contemporary anomaly every evening its famed and feared ice hockey team laced up their skates. Scenes of students shuffling on the wooden bleachers before 7 p.m., of chest painted diehards who brave the tundra-like conditions, of 60 minutes of nonstop enthusiasm from the Faithful and townies alike, and of a domination of our Hahvahd and Dartmouth rivals flooded my mind amid visions of seasons past.

Let me ask you a question. If I was to, say, go out with one of my friends, race two cars around the neighborhood for 50 or 60 laps, would you call that a sport? How about if I did 200 laps? Or what if I got a small group of people to watch? And I promised to do a back flip after I win? Would you call that a sport? I thought you wouldn’t.

But for some reason, I am still trying to understand why people consider NASCAR an actual sport. For some reason, driving around for 500 laps or so earns some coverage in sports shows. Really? How about me? Can I get some coverage? Give me a nice ride with some horsepower and I can busy too.

Are you ignorant, Donovan McNabb, or do you just like to propagate the stereotype that all football players are walking, talking meatheads? Why give more ammo to those who believe professional athletes were the kids who tried to fit the square block into the triangle hole back in preschool?

Following a 13-13 tie with the Cincinnati Bengals, McNabb explained to the media at Paul Brown Stadium that he was unaware an NFL game could end in a tie. Here is what a confused Mr. McNabb had to offer:

“I didn’t know that,” said McNabb. “I’ve never been part of a tie. I never even knew it was in the rule book. I was looking forward to getting the opportunity to get out there and try to drive to win the game. But unfortunately with the rules, we settled with a tie.”

“That organic eggplant hummus sandwich may be good for you, but it’s bad for our books” — warns a small sign sitting on the desk clusters in Mann library. My “ooh, yum” reaction might not be echoed by the person next to me, but neither of us find the sandwich to be anything out of the ordinary.

After all, this is a university well known for the diversity of foods available in our various dining locations. But beyond this cold and cloudy sphere we call the Cornell bubble, that sandwich order might elicit a very different response.

I used to spend my days in a different little upstate New York town, where the majority of people would read that sign and think, “a what sandwich?”