PHOENIX — Danny Amendola lists his hometown as The Woodlands, Texas. That’s all right.
Mainers know that the New England Patriots’ wide receiver has roots here. Well, sort of.
It’s well known that Amendola’s father, Willie, coached one year of varsity football at Massabesic High in Waterboro in the 1980s. Amendola was 2 at the time.
So he doesn’t remember anything about that brief time. His dad left for a job in Massachusetts and is still coaching in Texas.
But Amendola does have an uncle here, Bill Goddard of Yarmouth.
And apparently he’s made a commitment to him.
“I need to go to Maine,” he said during Thursday’s media session at the Patriots’ hotel. “I’m actually supposed to go fishing with my uncle up there. I have to make a trip. Obviously after the season.”
And for those who think Amendola is in the NFL because he had his father pushing him, Amendola offered this:
“My dad wouldn’t let me play until I was, like, 11 or 12 years old,” he said. “I remember there was a long time when I was like, ‘Dad, why aren’t you letting me play?’ He was like, ‘Your body’s not matured.’
“He didn’t want to burn me out early. I wanted to play but he kind of held me back.”
LOOKING FOR a Maine lunch at the Super Bowl?
Well, you’re in luck. Thanks to a Cousins Maine Lobster food truck, located smack dab in all of the Super Bowl activity downtown, you can get any number of Maine delights. Lobster rolls, lobster tails, lobster tots (yep, exactly what they sound like), New England clam chowder, lobster bisque and, of course, whoopie pies.
The company was co-founded in 2012 by cousins Jim Tselikis and Sabin Lomac. They once called Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough home, and secured funding for their company through the television show, “Shark Tank.”
According to Carrie Stratton, the owner of this truck, they will be arriving here this weekend to bring their delicacies to the Super Bowl.
But she’s having a blast serving her customers right now.
“I’ve got to say, people absolutely love it,” said Stratton, a Connecticut native whose father grew up in Ellsworth. “It’s just the product itself. Once a person has it, they come back for more.”
Stratton said the lobster is processed in Maine, and she receives shipments of the meat, tails and chowders.
“This was one of my dreams to do this,” she said.
ROB GRONKOWSKI, the Patriots’ tight end, was asked to describe his technique on his “Gronk Spike.”
Well, he said, “there’s not really a certain technique. You kind of wind up like a pitcher and you just spike it to the ground. Sometimes there are good spikes and sometimes there are bad ones. It all depends on how the ball hits the ground.”
He said that he had always wanted to spike in high school in college but would have received a penalty for doing it.
“So I did it and it caught on,” he said. “It’s just a good feeling when you get that score and you do your little touchdown celebration to get your team going.”
AFTER A COUPLE of days of giving only scripted answers, Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch had his most extensive comments of Super Bowl week.
“All week I told y’all what’s up and for some reason y’all continue to come back,” he said.
“I don’t know what story you want. I don’t know what image y’all wanna portray me. But it don’t matter what y’all think, what y’all say about me. When I go home at night, the same people I look in the face, my family that I love, that’s all I need. So y’all can make up whatever you wanna make up. I don’t say enough.
“You shove microphones and cameras in my face. When I’m home, I don’t see y’all, but you’re mad at me.”
THE LATE JUNIOR SEAU is one of the 15 finalists for selection to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and his former quarterback believes the great linebacker be honored.
“I have no doubt he will be elected,” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said. “If he can’t make it, nobody can. He’s truly one of a kind. It was a privilege playing with him.”
News services contributed to this report.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
