Richie article for NFL

Remember that Passion for the Game series they debuted with Jon? Well, they got Richie to do one too!

Becky



Keeping the faith
By Richie Sambora
Special to NFL.com


Note: Richie Sambora and wife Heather Locklear are big football fans. "She gets into the same ritual as I do on Sunday — sitting in front of the TV with some junk food and watching the games," he says. "She loves football." A personal friend of Doug Flutie, Steve Young and Bill Belichick, Bon Jovi's lead guitarist has been a huge football fan since he was a kid. The band's new CD — Bounce — will be in stores beginning Oct. 8.
(Oct. 1, 2002) — I'm a Giants fan now, but throughout the years I've liked a lot of different teams. When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers. Those early Super Bowls and those games against the Cowboys, those were games I'll always remember — up there in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin.

That's when I really first got turned on to football, and the Packers obviously were a dominating team with Vince Lombardi coaching up there. And they had all those great players — the Jerry Kramers and Bart Starrs.

Probably the first game I can remember watching was the Ice Bowl back in January 1967, when Bart Starr scored on the quarterback sneak to beat the Cowboys. That's something I'll always remember, watching that game at home with my old man. Me and the old man just couldn't get close enough to the TV to watch that!

Growing up in the New York area, my father was always a Giants and Jets fan. Obviously it was a big deal when the Jets beat the Colts in Super Bowl III — when Joe Namath was real cocky and guaranteed victory even though the Jets were a big underdog. He said they would beat them and he did it — that's something that always sticks out in my mind, too.

Even with Bon Jovi's busy schedule on the road, we get to as many games as we possibly can. We're all sports-minded guys to begin with. On the road, if there's something happening on our day off, I don't care if it's football, golf, baseball, basketball, whatever — I'm going! It's just a great thing to do.

I've been to the Super Bowl before, but it's just as much fun watching the big game on TV. I love the ritual of being at home and having a Super Bowl party with a bunch of my buddies — just sitting in front of a big screen and enjoying it that way.

Luckily for me, my assistant is real good friends with Steve Young's assistant, and I've had the great fortune to become friends with him. We're good buddies — I do a lot of stuff for his Forever Young charity. When we performed at the Olympics this year in Salt Lake City, we got together. Steve's from out there, so he came to see me and we had some dinner — then we pulled him on stage at the Olympics and he sang You Give Love a Bad Name with us. It was great! He's a great guy. We just hit it off. As a matter of fact, one of my prized possessions in my office is a birthday present he sent me this year. It's an autographed football that says: "Richie, To my great friend, Love, Steve Young."

I've got a bunch of other great football memorabilia that I love — a bunch of stuff from the Giants, signed jerseys and stuff. Steve Young also gave me some signed game jerseys of his.

My wife Heather also loves football. Loves it. For her it starts with college ball, because she's a UCLA alum. She gets into the same ritual as I do on Sunday — sitting in front of the TV with some junk food and watching the games. She loves football.

We don't have a team out here in L.A., so I guess if we're rooting for a team out here on the West Coast it's the Raiders. We got to know Jon Gruden a little bit while he was coaching the Raiders. We're great friends with Bill Belichick, too.

We've got a lot of friends in the NFL, it seems. Doug Flutie's a great friend of ours. Doug and I used to play ball together. When he was playing up in Vancouver in the Canadian Football League. Bon Jovi made a lot of records up in Vancouver, and we'd go play basketball at the Y with Doug every Sunday morning. Then we'd go out to dinner and stuff like that, and we got to be buddies. And we've been involved in charity work for his son.

I root for a lot of different guys. Being from New Jersey, I'm always going to root for our local teams, the Jets and the Giants. But we've also got Bill Belichick in New England, and we're always rooting for him. And you've gotta root for Doug. And when Steve Young and Joe Montana were playing, we had to root for them, because they're just too much fun to watch.

Next week on Passion for the Game: James Van Der Beek, actor

Thanx for the posts Becky (u r on a mission @ the moment)

Keep up the good work.

Mike

I enjoyed reading that Becky. ann