Colts get hero’s welcome, pleas for a repeat

INDIANAPOLIS – Peyton Manning waved his hands in familiar fashion Monday night at the RCA Dome, imploring the crowd at the Indianapolis Colts’ Super Bowl celebration to hold their noise. What he couldn’t quiet was the team’s defensive players.

Shortly after the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player left the microphone, the unit that keyed the title run stepped up and chanted in unison.

“Re-peat!” “Re-peat!”

The crowd estimated at 50,000 roared in unison. The target is set.

The Colts want a second world championship to go with the city’s first. The point was loud and clear, likely heard from as far away as New England, Baltimore and Chicago.

“They threw it out there, now they’ve got to back it up,” Colts coach Tony Dungy said with a smile.

Such was the end of the team’s first full day as NFL champion.

The Colts returned home to find a city as eager to repeat the feat. Officials opened the RCA Dome’s doors at 3 p.m. to find hundreds of fans. By 4:30, people in the bench seating in the crowded upper deck were asked to move closer together to make room for others still arriving.

Fifteen minutes later, sections of seats located behind the stage were made available. By 6 p.m., most of them were gone, too. The Colts players didn’t even arrive until after 7.

They were in awe of the sight when they entered through the southeast airlock.

“Wow, unbelievable,” team owner Jim Irsay said, still clutching the Lombardi Trophy.

Said Manning: “All I really want to say is, on behalf of the players, we want to thank the greatest fans in the world, you Indianapolis Colts fans.”

Order went by the wayside after that. Safety Bob Sanders and defensive ends Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney led the “repeat” chant before Freeney chided those who doubted the unit that ended the regular season as one of the league’s worst, at least statistically.

Inside the dome, Freeney’s exact words were drowned out by a crowd roar that was only a notch below the one that followed Marlin Jackson’s fourth-quarter interception to preserve the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots.

But Sanders, who likely saved the season by returning from injuries, picked up his teammate.

“We all love you,” he told the crowd. “This (championship) is for you.”

The rest of the 45-minute extravaganza included props for many of the parts and pieces that made the team work as a whole. The offensive line, with center Jeff Saturday at the microphone, took its bow.

Saturday said the players “all believed in each other.”

Pro Bowl receivers Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne were introduced in tandem, with Aaron Moorehead completing the unit. The normally shy Harrison insisted Wayne speak to the crowd, but the rest of the Colts forced Harrison to the podium, too. The first word drew a roar that, appropriately, made him inaudible after that to everyone in the building.

But Wayne’s words arguably had been enough.

“We’re world champions; that’s all we’ve got to say,” he said.

Dallas Clark spoke for the tight ends, and Dominic Rhodes led fellow tailback Joseph Addai to center stage. By the sounds of things, Rhodes and Addai, and not Manning, were the People’s MVPs after combining for 190 rushing yards in the 29-17 victory over the Bears.

The Colts’ special teams unit got its moment to be special, as did defensive tackle Montae Reagor, who missed most of the season with injuries suffered in an automobile accident. Irsay hugged him.

Colts radio announcer Bob Lamey ended the event by saying, “We’ll see you here next year.”

The defensive players couldn’t have said it better themselves.