Blogger and NEWSWEEK Contributor Robert Cox continues to file from the Super Bowl:

You can bet that Paris Hilton, George Clooney, the Victoria’s Secret Models, 50 cent, Ludacris and assorted Playboy bunnies wouldn’t be caught dead at the "Athletes in Action" Super Bowl breakfast let alone get up early enough to attend a function at 8:30 AM.  For anyone who has followed the media coverage this week from the Arizona desert they know glamlebrities like Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra have come to define an event that has gone from the “AFL-NFL Championship Game” to “Super Bowl” to “Super Bowl Weekend” to “Super Bowl Week”.  A week that capped off a professional football season littered with arrests, senseless tragedy and cheating.

The NFL-sanctioned Super Bowl Breakfast, hosted by Athletes in Action, offered a vastly different take on the true meaning of Super Bowl XLII.  For 21 years the AIA Breakfast has honored athletes who serve as Christian role models.

From the AIA Press Release:

The Bart Starr Award, bearing the name of the NFL Hall of Famer Bart Starr, honors Starr’s lifelong commitment to serving as a positive role model to this family, teammates and community.  The winner of the Bart Starr Award is determined by NFL player balloting at the end of the regular season, making the aware one of the few individual honors selected by the players themselves.

LaDainian Tomlinson broke down in tears after accepting the Bart Starr Award from Starr himself.  For any football fans still questing whether “LT” was faking his injury in the AFC Championship it was impossible to imagine this man deserting his teammates at their moment of need.

Tony Dungy followed Tomlinson and Starr.  In his address to the 1,900 football fans in attendance at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix - and the thousands watching via satellite at churches across the country – Dungy, Head Coach of the defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, praised Tomlinson.  He then went on to share his Super Bowl experience from last year within the larger context of his personal religious faith.  Sounding more like a minister than a football coach, Dungy told the audience about the joy of reaching the pinnacle of professional success and the tumultuous but exhilarating days of celebration that followed.

“You get to bask in victory for about a week”, said Dungy, “and then focus turns to getting back to the Super Bowl the next year.”

Dungy recounted his excitement at getting a phone call from President Bush and the total pandemonium around him as players, coaches, fans, press and assorted hangers-on celebrated the Colts win over Chicago in Tampa in 2007.

“As great as that night was”, Dungy told the crowd “it doesn’t take away from the disappointment of not being here this year.”  Dungy reflected on his 17 professional seasons that ended with a play-off loss before his win in Super Bowl XLI and wryly recalled how he did not want that particular post-game press conference to end.

“After standing up there all those times talking about why we lost the game there’s no way they were going to cut it short”, laughed Dungy. “That one could go on for three hours.”

Dungy is a mesmerizing speaker—it was abundantly clear why he is so highly regarded in the NFL and why his players are so loyal to him—and if all he wanted to talk about was football that would have been enough to entertain the audience.  Dungy was not, however, there to reminisce about past glories.  And this is where it became clear that what Dungy, Starr, Tomlinson, Anthony Munoz, Bert Jones and other current and former NFL stars were there to recognize was a very different side of their sport and a very different understanding of what it means to be part of a championship-caliber football team.

Dungy shifted gears by citing the gospel of Matthew, asking, “What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?” Dungy then explained that answering this question was the reason he returned year after to year to the Bart Starr Award breakfast—“to share Christ’s message.”  From that point Dungy went from head coach to evangelist, encouraging his audience to let Christ in their lives, closing with a prayer and a caution to those who seek fulfillment in a job promotion or closing a sale or some other temporary accomplishment.

“I don’t want you to win your own personal Super Bowl”, he said, “and find there’s something missing”.

Afterward I had a chance to speak with Dungy. He was signing copies of New York Times bestselling book "Quiet Strength" ask him about the contrast between the media hype around the Super Bowl and his message at the breakfast. While recognizing the need to promote the event Dungy lamented the focus on the “glitz and the glamor” at the expense of great players and great role models like Tomlinson and, to a certain extent, the importance of winning the big game.

“That’s the American way of life”, said Dungy, “the idea that you set goals, achieve them by winning or else you fail that we so often buy in to.”

Dungyrecounted how many players he had known who made great plays, won big games and with it the adulation of the media and fans only to find an emptiness in their lives. Nearby Bart Starr, signing footballs for a long line of fans excited to share a few words with a legendary quarterback, concurred.

Starr likewise lamented the way the media tend to focus on the negative stories—Michael Vick, various arrests of Bengal players and others.

“We need to spread the word to the media”, said Starr, “that players like Rich Eisenare the kinds of people we need to be honoring but serving as a role model gets little or no attention.”

After the breakfast I drove an hour away to Glendale, the site of Super Bowl XLII, to walk among the throngs that came out to football’s version of a carnival, the NFL Experience, where corporate sponsors host various activities and events for children and families.  At the Samsung booth were young, attractive women in partially unzipped referee tops handing out coupons.  Over at the NFL Total Access television set, the mostly male crowd “oohed” and “aahed” as two Victoria’s Secret models preened for onlookers before sitting down for an interview with Rich Eisen, Terrell Davis and Trent Dilfer.  And later that night, competition of another sort would be going on as Playboy magazine and Maxim magazine competed for the biggest celebrities and the lowest cut dresses.

As Super Bowl Week hype draws to a close and we get ready for the actual game, it was clear that Starr and Dungy have their work cut of for them in shifting attention away from the hoopla to real role models like Tomlinson.

NOTE: I took about 250 photos on Saturday.  I've uploaded them to flickr here.