By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Dave Phillipson, a 1979 Union High School graduate who lives in San Diego, has been to his share of Super Bowls, including XLII last Feb. 3 in Arizona.
As someone who "works in the sports performance industry on the mental side of sports," the Super Bowl is like a "reunion" get-together where "contacts are made and relationships are created."
As a "week- or two-week-long party," the intoxicating Super Bowl atmosphere is worth experiencing even if a fan never gets inside the National Football League championship football game, he said Tuesday night.
Phillipson believes the best place to see the Super Bowl is in Miami, where the carnival flows across the region, from South Beach to Boca Raton.
If he was NFL commissioner, Phillipson said, he would have the game moored in Miami, which hospitably even made the Olympic torch arrival special.
Phillipson said in the 1980s he was working in stocks and bonds when he attended a personal development seminar which exposed him to the premise of making peak performances consistent.
Professional athletes such as Michael Jordan have the knack with their "mental edge" of "getting into a zone where they feel nothing can go wrong," such as the Bulls great pumping in 48 points even while battling the flu.
What started as a way businesses could entice consistent peak performance from employees, he was speaking at a Rotary Club when the dad of a Santa Barbara swimmer asked if it could not also be applied to athletics.
A "huge baseball fan," Phillipson's next opportunity came being invited to create a baseball component for Biosports, which started from the physical side of sports.
Working with athletes, Phillipson, who has done some motivational speaking, "elicits what that recipe is and feeds it back to them. It's conditioning mind and body to work together," working with both teams and individual athletes.
Phillipson also has a background in public relations.
When the Super Bowl came to San Diego, he escorted VIPS down to "radio row," meeting Manning. He has also been to the Colts' training camp, but said he knows Peyton's older brother Cooper better than the three-time MVP quarterback.