NFL Commissioner ROGER GOODELL confirmed that PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH and his wife BARBARA "will participate" in the Super Bowl LI coin toss Sunday. Bush spokesperson JIM MCGRATH said, "The Bushes didn't hesitate for one second in accepting." George Bush was "discharged on Monday from Houston Methodist Hospital" after battling pneumonia. McGrath said that the goal of attending the Super Bowl "may have helped motivate Bush in his recovery" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 2/2).
BREAK IT DOWN: Video of ARTHUR BLANK dancing following the NFC Championship went viral, and the Falcons Owner yesterday said, "I'm not sure you call it dancing ... what it is is raw emotion You get so carried away. This is an extension of my family, Atlanta is my family." Meanwhile, Blank is paying for the team's employees to go to Houston, and he said, "We live by our values, we run our businesses by our values, and that was the right thing to do" ("CBS This Morning," 2/1). See the team's Twitter video of Blank dancing.
SUIT & TIE: In one of the "most overlooked transformations in the NFL over the past few years," Patriots coach BILL BELICHICK "wears nice dress shirts to news conferences more often than any other coach." But while he has "tightened up his look, he has drastically scaled back his deployment of his famous gray, serrated hoodie." He "wore a blue hoodie three times this year, but not once did he deploy the iconic gray one with the hacked-off sleeves." This season it "became routine for him to appear for weekday and even postgame news conferences looking like he had raided Brooks Brothers" (ESPN.com, 2/1).
NAMES: Dolphins S MICHAEL THOMAS, Jets WR BRANDON MARSHALL, Pro Football HOFer AENEAS WILLIAMS and Lions WR ANQUAN BOLDIN are four of several current and former players tomorrow who will "participate in a town hall forum on race relations" in Miami. Dolphins Owner STEPHEN ROSS' anti-racism RISE Initiative "organized the event, which 'will review lessons learned from the activist athlete" in the '16 NFL season and "propose solution-oriented next steps for the sports industry to drive social change" (MIAMI HERALD, 2/2)....Food Network's SANDRA LEE is the "captain of the Super Bowl Host Committee's group of 10,000 volunteers" due to her "ability to inspire." Lee: "What I tell them is that they're the first impression for visitors to the beautiful city of Houston. Their hospitality and graciousness will set the town for these visitors' entire experience" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 2/2).
