Charles Woodson, a cornerback for the Oakland Raiders, intercepted a pass on the third possession of Super Bowl XXXVII, and only a few of the 24 fans sitting in the Stevenson Lounge noticed.

Although half of the crowd was attentive to the football game, the other half was holding conversation, oblivious to the game.

And then the first television break came.

It was at the moment when the first wave of commercials arrived that the eyes of the 24 students became glued to the television.

“I don’t watch many football games, but I really like the commercials,” said Beth Cavallero, a graduate student dietetics major. “The Super Bowl is like an event within itself.”

Branden Sholty, a freshman business major, also likes the commercials, if not for their humor, but their originality.

“The football gets me excited, but the commercials only add to it,” he said. “You don’t see the same boring commercials you see all year long.”

Students also found entertainment in areas aside from the football game itself.

“I love football, but the half-time show and the commercials are really great,” said Julie McKendry, a senior family consumer sciences major. “The half-time show always has good singers.”

Jono Dykstra, a freshman psychology major, disagreed with McKendry’s statement.

“No Doubt, Shania Twain and Sting? The half-time show is obviously not geared toward college kids,” he said.

As the actions of the group of Stevenson students show, there are as many people watching the game for the game as there are for the half-time shows and commercials.

Kevin McPherson, a senior psychology major and one of the three planners for the Stevenson party, said the the universal participation of the Super Bowl is enough to compare the day to a holiday.

“I think the Super Bowl is comparative to a national holiday, like the Fourth of July or Christmas,” he said

But not every student finds the extra-curriculars surrounding Super Bowl to be a good thing.

“I think the whole thing gets pretty old,” Evan Frisby, a junior finance major, said. “They spend, like, two weeks, hyping it all and I think it’s all worthless.”

Super Bowl pre-game shows began at noon and festivities started soon thereafter. Although most students did not begin their Super Bowl fun at mid-day, they each had his or her own routine.

“I have been hanging out with friends, sitting around,” Jono said. “I’ll be jumping from room to room when the game starts.”

Frisby said he was having some friends over, but wasn’t buying food because he is a broke college kid.

Cavallero, who has two roommates that are also dietetics majors, had the money for food at her Super Bowl party, and not surprisingly some of it was nutritious.

“We have some healthy food around like pretzels, veggies and ranch dip,” she said.

“But we’re going to order some pizza, and it’s not going to be veggie.”

Greg Magnus, owner of Chubby’s Pizza, said Super Bowl Sunday is the second busiest day of the year to Homecoming weekend.

“Oh yeah, it’s definitely busier today,” he said. “It’s like three or four times busier. It gets really busy before the game and slows down, but will speed up during half-time.”

J.D. Sowers, a manager at the County Market grocery store in Charleston, said it seemed like there were more customers buying snacks Sunday.

Although a majority of students choose to eat pizza and relax while waiting for Super Bowl kick-off, others chose another, colder way to get ready for the game.

“Me and my buddies were actually outside on the quad playing football,” Sholty said. “It was okay until you got tackled and got snow on your hands and in your pants … and the ground was pretty hard, too.”