By DANIEL HUMAN
Carl Graber leaned back in his bar stool, clasped his hands over his stomach and studied the projector screen on the other side of the bar Sunday.
A regular on Sundays at Buffalo Wild Wings, Graber calmly gazed at the screen two hours before the Super Bowl began.
He watched CBS news anchor Katie Couric report about New Orleans’ recovery from Hurricane Katrina and shared photos and stories about his friends and family.
The serenity ceased in the Kokomo restaurant once patrons donning blue Indianapolis Colts jerseys — Peyton Manning’s the most popular — filed into the bar.
“Last time it was like this [in the bar] was a few weeks ago — the last time they played the Saints,” said Graber, who has been a Colts fan since the franchise came to Indianapolis.
By 6:30 p.m., the bar’s volume increased to nearly deafening volumes.
The riotous cheers led into stomping and booing for the Colts fans after the Saints clinched the team’s first Super Bowl victory with a 31-17 win.
Seconds after kickoff, the people sitting amid the restaurant’s 30-plus TVs and projector screens began screaming, jumping and punching the air wildly as the Colts quickly pulled out to a 10-0 lead.
But the commotion quelled as the Saints stomped back and scored two field goals.
The only person cheering then was Shawna Turner, who braved wearing a Drew Brees jersey into a viper pit of Colts fans. Her “whoops” of excitement echoed louder than the blue-jerseyed crowd’s “boos” as the Saints scored two field goals, ending the first half with the Colts holding a marginal 10-6 lead.
Men swapped game-play strategies and theories as they waited their turn for the restroom. In the background, The Who’s Roger Daltry belted the final wails to “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
The atmosphere remained heavy when the game resumed and the Saints pulled ahead of the Colts minutes later, leading into another round of “boos” and four-letter words from the BW3’s crowd.
It was a tension that lasted through the entire second half.
While the fans at BW3’s tensed and sighed during the tumultuous second half, the restaurant’s staff wondered how the game’s outcome would affect their business.
Bartender Megan Kennell said Colts’ wins mean better tips for the servers. A loss means people are more likely to walk out without paying, she said.
BW3’s Manager Terry McMurray said Super Bowl Sunday is usually the restaurant’s second busiest day of the year. No. 1 is the night before Thanksgiving when college students come home to Kokomo and want to go out with their friends that night, he said.
The restaurant was at full-tilt for the one-day business boom.
McMurray said all but two of the restaurant’s approximately two dozen employees worked Sunday. And the kitchen was stocked with almost 1,200 chicken wings — almost double the usual amount, McMurray said.
When the Colts appeared in Super Bowl XLI, the restaurant earned between $10,000 and $13,000, he said.
• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.
