The murmur of a faint Los Angeles memory is still alive somewhere deep in the circuits of my aged neural synapses: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 1970-something. With dad, a hot dog, and a dream come true — watching Wendell Tyler run.

It was Rams against somebody — can’t remember who. But I can still remember the distant clash of helmets on the field, and my dad’s game-time symposium on how line judges move the yardage sticks, and the on-field cues for when there’s a commercial break in the game.

Man, time flies!

But the synapses were firing again this week during my impromptu visit to the L.A. Convention Center, where the NFL’s Super Bowl Experience — a weeklong exhibition of all things NFL–  filled the giant halls. If American football was a theme park, this would be it — or at least the precursor to it, kind of a traveling World’s Fair showcasing everything from the game’s history to interactive games to bumping up against players and personalities themselves. Thousands will make the pilgrimage here this week in the run up to Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.

I was there Monday to pop in and cover an 11:15 a.m news conference, where Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was joining the Super Bowl Host Committee to welcome the Super Bowl to Los Angeles.

After explosive-detection dogs checked out the nooks and crannies of my humble hatchback, and I got through the heavily fortified security, I was in. I was making good time, until I promptly missed the press conference — the victim of a credentialing glitch.

On the verge of heading home with an unfilled reporter’s notebook, my editor’s text message landed: “The public wasn’t in the NFL experience today, right? So you had free roam?”

Shame on me.

He was right. I did. The place was basically empty, and I like to roam. The public wasn’t in the place on Monday, so I had it basically to myself, along with a sprinkling of other media. And why let the day pass I procured go to waste, right?

Ryan Carter and James H. Williams at Super Bowl Experience at the Los Angeles Convention Center (Photo by Ryan Carter)

So, I walked back in, slightly like a zombie, not really knowing what I was going to walk — or run —  into.

I’m glad I did. Of all people, I ran into James H. Williams, a young sports journalist for the Southern California News Group.  Williams was on a day off, but had come to the Convention Center with a fellow writer friend to check it out. He was roaming a bit, too, but he had a much keener eye for the place, and in my eyes became a bit of a tour guide through the cavernous “theme park” — the center of the NFL universe at the moment.

He put things into perspective for me.

“There’s a lot of history here,” he said. “I don’t know when the next one is going to be in L.A. We’ve got the stadium here, so maybe that means we’ll get another one in the future. This was just something I couldn’t pass up. But if it takes another 8 to 10 years before another L.A. Super Bowl, it’s like man, ‘I wish I would have gone to the other one.’ I don’t want to regret it. So, I had to come see it, regardless.”

Cheers to that. I may not be actually going to the Super Bowl. But why not get a taste of the “experience.”

We ended up throwing footballs, kicking field goals and running sprints at the interactive exhibits.

James H. Williams, SCNG sports journalist, preps to hit his receiver at Super Bowl Experience at the Los Angeles Convention Center (Photo by Ryan Carter)

We stared at glass-encased arrays of old and new uniforms, colorful cleats, helmets. Shoulder pads. We watched other media people roam.

“Wasn’t that a former player over there?” “I think so.”

People lined up for hours to see the Lombardi trophy up close the other day, Williams told me.

It was all football. All the time. A sort of gridiron mecca. That is, until we came up to a teal-suited mannequin that got the synapses firing again.

It was the image of Prince, 2007. Halftime show. In the rain. Purple Rain.

An outfit worn by musician Prince is seen as part of an exhibit about Super Bowl halftime shows during a media preview of the Super Bowl Experience on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, at the L.A. Convention Center. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

I only wanted to see you

Laughing in the purple rain

You know the rest. Sing it!

It was my chance to share it with the kid — Williams.

“I thought that was definitely among the best halftime shows, if not the best,” I said. “Definitely in the top 5.”

I mean, he performed Purple Rain — IN THE POURING RAIN! — in front of 4 gazillion people, with a marching band on the field, of all things.

Prince’s garb, in memory of his Super Bowl halftime performance in 2007. (Photo by Ryan Carter)The passion was thick during the downpour, and you didn’t have to be there to feel it. You could be watching it on a 2007-version big screen at a friend’s party, with nachos and drink in hand and mouth and still feel it. (That was me.)

Nearby, there were similar nods to U2, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, Beyonce, Paul McCartney….on and on, clothing, guitars.

But it was the Prince exhibit — that one got me the most. I remember it like it was yesterday.

If memory serves me right, the Coliseum game was the first and only NFL game I ever saw in person. And when the Rams moved to St. Louis several years later, and I had moved on to drums, Star Wars and rock n roll, I don’t know that I ever embraced pro football again like I did in those early years, when Wendell Tyler was the man. (For you whippersnappers out there, Wendell Tyler was a Rams running back. Vintage late ’70s, early ’80s. Speedy as anything.)

Certainly, the adult in me worries about the game itself, from its issues on race to its sobering past, present and future on safety. And I realize I don’t do all those topics justice here.

But I was glad I walked back into the center of the game’s universe for a day. It wasn’t fully about football. It was more about growing up.

And yeah, it’s true,.. In the immortal of words, of, ahem, me: “Sometimes you just gotta throw a ball.”

Sometimes ya just gotta throw a ball. #SuperBowlExperience #LAconventioncenter ⁦@JHWreporter⁩ ty pic.twitter.com/7yzdBnSfGb

— Ryan Carter (@ryinie) February 8, 2022

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