You’ve might have figured this out by now, but I’m a huge football fan, so this weekend being the last hoorah for this year’s season is bittersweet.

Like a lot of people, I’m a much more committed college fan than NFL supporter. But honestly, I’d watch flag football if it was on TV (which it is now with the Pro Bowl, but I’ll complain about that another time), so I’m really excited about Sunday’s game
between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.

The Super Bowl is always fun for a number of reasons. It’s the Super Bowl, for starters. It’s still the biggest game of the year in
our country’s most popular sport (sorry, baseball fans, but it’s true) and a huge portion of the population will tune in Sunday. Now, a lot of viewers might watch for the commercials, the new movie trailers, or — and more likely — Taylor Swift. And all of that is just fine. I can promise you the people over at CBS don’t care why we watch, as long as we do.

But, there’s always some other neat details and local connections that make the Super Bowl fun to watch. First, it’s fun to see what players are from our neck of the woods and I’d be remiss if I didn’t start by mentioning Jerry Rice. I know he’s retired, but I grew up watching him become probably the best wide receiver to ever play the game, and he did most of that with the 49ers. And for those that don’t know, Rice is a Mississippi boy from Starkville who played college ball at Mississippi Valley State (I don’t know how you missed out on that one, Bulldogs) and won three Super Bowls in San Fran.

Then there’s Patrick Willis, the Ole Miss and 49ers linebacker who was just selected for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now, I won’t do a deep dive into the current rosters of the 49ers and the Chiefs. With the SEC as good as it has been for as long as it has been, I could write a column just about which local players are making impacts on NFL teams these days, but you get the point I’m driving toward here.

Lastly, and this one is just for me, my 10-year-old son Colin has really taken an interest in football this year. In March, I took him to his first A-Day game — which is what we call our spring football scrimmage at the University of Alabama. Back in September, we went to Starkville to watch Bama play Mississippi State. But, ear- lier in the pro season, Colin inexplicably chose the 49ers as his team. I’m not sure why he honed in on San Francisco, but I did the same thing at his age with the Indianapolis Colts and I’m a huge fan to this day. So, who am I to judge? Needless to say, he’s on top of the world this weekend and I’m just a proud dad getting to watch him discover this fantastic game.

There are so many other reasons Super Bowl Sunday is exciting year-in and year-out, but mostly, it’s just a great time to
pause and take a breath. Life is really busy. The Super Bowl gives us a chance to gather around the TV with family and friends and just hang out and unplug: some- thing most of us probably don’t do as often as we should.

I hope we all get the chance to do that this weekend. Even if the game ends up getting drowned out by conversation, that’s OK.
In fact, it may be better than the game itself. Enjoy some leisure time. Enjoy your friends and family.

And go 49ers, I guess.

Blake Bell is the general manager and executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at blake.bell@vicksburgpost.com.