With the arrival of the Super Bowl to Indianapolis, central Indiana will hold the spotlight for a brief moment in the world of sports. Though Muncie is an hour away from the Circle City, a Ball State professor has a significant connection to the Super Bowl.
Edward Krzemienski, a Ball State history instructor, worked with colleague Michael MacCambridge to help editorialize the definitive illustrated guide to the Super Bowl. The book, published by British banking corporation Kraken Opus, is as daunting as the game itself.
The regular version costs $4,000, the version Krzemienski received for free from working on the book.
"My wife always kidded me because she said that before we bought our car that's the most expensive thing we owned," he said.
It takes up nearly the entire space of a coffee table and weighs more than 70 pounds. It comes in a large wooden box, accompanied by gloves to use to prevent smudging from turning pages.
The pages are filled with photographic timelines of each Super Bowl, from the first between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs in 1967 to Super Bowl XLIII between the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers. Each game contains a summary graphic, displaying every drive from the game.
Another section contains portraits of every game's MVP, using a Polaroid 20x24 studio camera. The MVP Edition of the book had each MVP sign his name under his portrait. If you're interested in buying that version, don't bother. They cost $40,000, only 600 were made and they sold out.
As both a history professor and sports enthusiast, Krzemienski has worked on several other projects. He contributed to ESPN's college football encyclopedia, writing about the Big Ten and the Mid-American Conference. He grew up in the same town as Joe Namath and was a main contributor to a documentary about him on HBO, as well being featured on another HBO show called "Breaking the Huddle" about the desegregation of college football in the SEC.
He said he can view the effects of the Super Bowl from multiple angles. The ripple effect will probably be seen in Muncie in the form of an influx of fans and changing traffic patterns. Other colleges will feel the effects as well. IUPUI is shutting down its campus on Thursday and Friday.
"It's the single most important one-day sporting event, probably ever," he said. "You are the spotlight of the world."
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