TERRE HAUTE — Fans marvel at the seemingly telepathic connection between quarterback Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts receivers.
He knows which way they’ll turn on a pass route. They know whether he’ll throw high or low. He anticipates their footspeed. They anticipate the velocity of his passes. Sure, it’s carefully choreographed movement. But when the opposition forces Manning and his targets to improvise, the Colts seldom appear to confuse each other.
They play by intuition, as The Who might sing at halftime of the Super Bowl XLIV matchup tonight between the Colts and the New Orleans Saints at Miami.
The bonds between Manning and pass catchers Dallas Clark, Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garçon and Austin Collie began forming in Terre Haute. Manning and center Jeff Saturday got to know each other here too, at the Colts summer training camp on the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology campus. The team has trained here since 1999, when Saturday joined the club as a free agent. Since then, most new Colts forged working relationships with their teammates at the practice facilities around Rose’s Cook Stadium. It’s where Gary (Brackett) met Freddy (Keiaho), as linebackers.
The players and coaches devote those three sweat-filled weeks to repetition, to eliminating mistakes and the pursuit of precision. If all goes as planned, by the end, Manning and his mates know what each other will do even before they do it.
National Football League rivals respect the Colts for their superior execution of a vast array of plays. Hauteans should feel a special twinge of pride tonight, each time the CBS announcers gush about the instinctive collaborations by Indianapolis. It all started here, way back in August.
Obviously, the Colts’ intuitive style is not infallible. The unheralded New York Jets disrupted Indianapolis’ plans in the first half of the American Football Conference championship game. The Jets led 17-13 after two quarters. But, of course, Coach Jim Caldwell’s Colts regrouped at halftime and rolled to a 30-17 victory, and their second Super Bowl berth in four seasons.
New Orleans poses an even larger threat. The Saints outscored all other NFL teams, with 510 points in the 16-game regular season. Their quarterback, Purdue alum Drew Brees, set a league record by completing 70.6 percent of his passes. New Orleans also has a stronger running attack, the NFL’s sixth best, led by back Reggie Bush. The Colts ranked last among 32 teams, in rushing.
Still, the Saints’ defense faces a mountainous task. They force a lot of turnovers, but rate only 26th best against the pass. And that is what Manning, Clark, Wayne, Garçon and Collie do best.
The Saints’ bring a compelling story to Miami. They represent a city still staggered by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. They have the empathy of the entire nation, including Indiana. Their Super Bowl appearance — the first in the Saints’ franchise history — is an achievement to celebrate.
But we still want the Colts to win today. And, when the game’s over and Manning, Caldwell and Wayne hoist the Lombardi Trophy, we wouldn’t mind if one of them said, “This one’s for Terre Haute.”
Editorials
TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: The Colts express — from Terre Haute to Miami
Whatever happens tonight, remember it all started here
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EDITORIAL: Drug-testing bill lacks fairness and decency
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EDITORIAL: Keep religion out of science class
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EDITORIAL: Delivering on infrastructure
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EDITORIAL: Volunteer ‘army’ serving the needs of children
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EDITORIAL: Big dreams do come true
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EDITORIAL: Big ‘kick’ from a native son
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EDITORIAL: Smoking ban good enough
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EDITORIAL: United Way’s strong reputation helps sustain community trust
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EDITORIAL: Nothing sexy about human trafficking
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EDITORIAL: The law’s good ‘Shepard’
Under the radar and against the backdrop of the fractious right-to-work battle going on in Indianapolis, one of state’s leading public servants delivered his valedictory in typical understated, even quiet, style two weeks ago. And before Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard slips away into retirement, his work needs to be acknowledged and praised.
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EDITORIAL: Cops at risk
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TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: Helping your community, a few mouse clicks at a time
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EDITORIAL: Raves around the town
To begin the week, we are raving about these recent pieces of local news:
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EDITORIAL: Let Hoosiers have a say on right-to-work bill
Indiana legislators, both Republican and Democrat, may claim to know the will of the people on right-to-work.
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EDITORIAL: Thin ice winter’s deadly scourge
Six-year-old Trevor Wayne Young of Nashville, Ind., and 50-year-old Allen D. Johnson of Galva, Ill., probably had little in common — except the way they died.
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EDITORIAL: Meeting needs at St. Ann's
The caliber of a community often is revealed by its efforts to help its least fortunate citizens.
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EDITORIAL: A sweet deal for Amazon.com
That loud lip-smack on the cheek you heard echoing from Indianapolis last week was the sound of Gov. Mitch Daniels kissing off on what amounts to another sweetheart deal between Indiana and Amazon.com, the online retailing giant.
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EDITORIAL: A new era for growth
The promised announcement of a major new industry for the former Pfizer property in southern Vigo County turned out to be well worth the wait.
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EDITORIAL: Transparency a worthy goal
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EDITORIAL: Shakir Bell’s success gives boost to Sycamore football
Hope inspires progress. It’s the fuel for a better future.
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EDITORIAL: Inspiration for the future
Hope inspires progress. It’s the fuel for a better future.
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EDITORIAL: Put teeth in public access laws
Indiana’s laws governing public access, as good as they are, lack something important — teeth. There are no significant consequences for agencies or employees who intentionally violate them.
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EDITORIAL: Time for teamwork in Sullivan
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EDITORIAL: Lawmakers should leave IHSAA, high school basketball alone
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EDITORIAL: ‘Anthem’ proposal way off key
Remember Faith Hill’s impassioned rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl in 2000?
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EDITORIAL: Back from the access brink
It took almost a week, but Gov. Daniels finally stepped up and did the right thing on Wednesday, rescinding new rules aimed at restricting the number of people allowed in the Statehouse during this session of the General Assembly.
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EDITORIAL: Poor decision by local Dems
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EDITORIAL: Be it resolved …
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EDITORIAL: Another slice of Classic history
Baseball is the so-called American pastime, but to Hoosiers and to our Illinois neighbors, it’s basketball that gets a community’s blood pumping. And no form of roundball does that any more intimately than high school basketball, whether boys or girls. College hoops is great, but nothing quite beats the packed, overheated confines of a high school gym when a tight game turns on every possession, every shot, every rebound, every pass, every defensive position. The sing-song of cheerleaders, the shrillness of a ref’s whistle, the squeak of gym shoes on hardwood, the shouted instructions from the benches, the aroma of popcorn — those form a Midwestern tableau unlike any other.
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EDITORIAL: A strategy for growth
There are many ways to market an area in order to spur economic growth. Some may work better than others, but there is no perfect approach. The essential thing is to have a strategy and to implement it.
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EDITORIAL: Drug-testing bill lacks fairness and decency








