BETWEEN CHICAGO AND TAMPA -- Thirty thousand feet in the air, Dan Vitale, Sr. is asleep, dreaming, possibly, about the football game he will watch in just a couple short days. He made a similar trip three years ago, from the brutal Chicago winter to the warm Florida sunshine, for another Jan. 1 football game.
He travels to watch his sons. "I'm No. 40 and No. 31's dad," he tells me. I already knew that though. He wears his son Dan's t-shirt. Lisa, Dan and Tommy's mother, wears a sweatshirt with "40" stitched onto the sleeve.
The Vitale clan blends in on this early-morning flight to Tampa where cheers of "Go ‘Cats" ring out whenever a Northwestern supporter walks down the aisle.