Frontiere Gets the Buzzer at This Countdown’s End

Tick, tick, tick . . .

Ten yards to go, six seconds to play, one play to call.

Under pressure, legs wobbling, with everything and nothing left to say, let us try to breathe normally (good luck), regain composure, and do the Super Bowl XXXIV chaotic countdown:

6 . . . The best thing about the mind-blowing conclusion--did the last quarter last four hours? Five?--is that nobody will be talking about the commercials this morning.

5 . . . Which coach do you think was more nervous about his shaky kicking game as the game lurched toward overtime?

Actually, Ram Coach Dick Vermeil, with wobbly Jeff Wilkins, probably feared it most. His team was on its heels for most of the fourth quarter, and got its biggest score on a wonderful reach-back reception by Isaac Bruce for a 73-yard touchdown.

Jeff Fisher’s Tennessee Titans had the better defense, the tangible momentum--and, with Steve McNair, the most spectacular performer.

(By the way, going back to the Sugar Bowl, this is the second consecutive title game in which the best player on the field was the losing quarterback--remember Michael Vick?)

4 . . . But Tennessee finally felt the absence of its starting safeties, Marcus Robertson for the whole game and Blaine Bishop after his third-quarter neck injury.

Bruce was amazing, but Anthony Dorsett Jr. didn’t make the tackle at the 35.

3 . . . Do you think Fisher and McNair would’ve been able to get one more yard if they hadn’t called those two critical timeouts earlier in the half and could’ve saved at least 35 seconds on the last drive?

2 . . . But the seam pass to Kevin Dyson, to let him catch it inside the five and break a tackle if possible, was the right call, at the right place on the field.

1 . . . And it just didn’t quite cross the goal line.

It did not prove that the Rams made the right move by going to St. Louis (very graceless comment, Georgia Frontiere), but it proved that the greatest, most thunderous competitive moments are decided by the tiniest of margins.

Exhale now.

THE BIG PICTURE

Lindsay Davenport, smashing.

Mike Tyson, battering.

Andre Agassi, answering.

I could not imagine typing these three names together, for any single reason, until this weekend, when all three went overseas and, in their unique and uniquely American ways, gave us long glimpses at why they are who they are.

Does it take crossing international borders to get a clearer view of our biggest personalities?

DAVENPORT: She didn’t beat Martina Hingis in the Australian Open finals so much as she uprooted her and flung her aside.

Although she has been nicked here and there in Grand Slam events, Hingis is still the player by which every other top female tennis player is measured. But what Hingis said after Davenport beat her in straight sets told you that maybe there is a new standard in women’s tennis, and she is an American.

“I just hate playing her,” Hingis said of the champion.

TYSON: He said he felt more appreciated fighting in England--if spending two rounds knocking out a flatfoot named Julius Francis is considered a fight--than in the U.S., where he said he is “treated like a monster.”

Of course, he neglected to mention that America has made him fabulously wealthy, and continues to do so, and that if he feels better as an expatriate, there are millions of people here who would not stop him.

AGASSI: He’s past the normal tennis prime, and he has disappeared for years at a time.

But Agassi, as he showed again by outlasting Pete Sampras in the Australian semifinals and Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the finals, is impossible to get rid of, maybe the most stubbornly competitive athlete since Michael Jordan.

WEEKEND TALKING POINTS

1. Braves sign Bobby Bonilla to minor league contract: Hard to figure, unless the Braves just want him to show John Rocker the Bronx.

2. Mets sign Garth Brooks after cutting Bonilla: Same statistics, same waistline, and probably almost as annoying. Was Chris Gaines unavailable?

3. Steve Young, Super Bowl commentator: He has a future in TV. Or is it a present?

4. Mike Sherman, Al Groh, Dave Campo: Packers, Jets and Cowboys fill coaching vacancies, and make it official--the world has run out of good NFL coaching candidates.

5. Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott lead 2000 NFL Hall of Fame class: Jack Youngblood apparently was one vote short. Voters were many brain cells short.

6. Kevin Greene retires: Let’s skip protocol. For this camera-hogging, WWF-loving player, who needs to wait five years before he’s enshrined in the Hall of Profane?

7. USC, 1-1 on Oregon trip: The Trojan horses keep on going. Strafed Oregon State with Pacific 10 Conference-record three-point barrage; lost to Oregon only because the batteries ran out.

8. Tom Osborne, running for Congress: Opponents beware--he does great in the polls.

9. Agassi, and company: Just checking . . . But will Steffi Graf become the first woman with double-Grand Slams--as player and girlfriend?

10. Michael Jordan axes Gar Heard: In his final game as a player, Jordan fired the shot heard ‘round the world. Now, in his first month as president, he’s firing the Heard in over his head.

LEADING QUESTIONS

Other than senior forward Sean Farnham, who was heard screaming in the locker room after the Bruins were dropped by Oregon on Saturday, does anybody involved with the UCLA basketball program realize what time it is?

Can anyone else see that the Bruins’ next six games include three against top-five teams (Stanford, Syracuse and Arizona) and three that are far from easy (California, USC and Arizona State)?

That, at worst, Steve Lavin’s team has to split those games--which would bring its record to 15-9? And that anything less threatens to push the Bruins to the brink of missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since Walt Hazzard was the coach?

Is anyone else awake in Westwood?