On Deadline at the Super Bowl, Remembering a Columnist’s Credo

Mario Manningham’s 38-yard reception in the fourth quarter helped the Giants defeat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI.With another Super Bowl upon us, I’ve been thinking about the first one I covered, in 2004. At a staff dinner early in the week leading up to the game, Dave Anderson, my fellow Sports of the Times columnist, pulled me aside for a talk.

I had covered other big sporting events, but never a Super Bowl. Anderson, a dean of American sports journalists and especially venerated in professional football circles, had advice for the rookie on what promised to be a harrowing game night.

To cope with the stress of writing a pregame column for the earliest edition of the newspaper — which…