Getting Schooled During the Super Bowl

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What do you do on Super Bowl Sunday if you don’t like football?

If you’re Gary Gitnick, you throw a party for 350 influential people in your big Encino home and spend the day socializing instead of cheering.

Former Gov. Gray Davis and his wife, Sharon, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his girlfriend, Lu Parker, were among the political leaders who showed. Media types included Peter Bart of Variety, Christine Devine of Fox 11 News and Frank Mottek of KNX-AM (1070) radio.

Gitnick, who’s chief of gastroenterology at UCLA’s medical school, and his wife, Cherna, have thrown the Super Bowl party for 25 years. It’s all to raise awareness for a foundation the couple started called the Fulfillment Fund, which helps 1,700 at-risk kids each year with counseling, scholarships or “whatever they need to succeed,” he said.

In the past, a political figure spoke at halftime, “but nothing changed,” so this year Gitnick presided over a panel discussion with an ambitious topic: how to dramatically improve the Los Angeles Unified School District. Panelists included John Deasy, the incoming superintendent; A.J. Duffy, the outgoing teachers union president; school board members Tamar Galatzan and Monica Garcia; and City Council members Paul Krekorian and Jan Perry.

The panel ran long, but no problem. The game was TiVo’d for fans. Even so, Gitnick didn’t watch.

“Quite honestly, I don’t care for football,” he shrugged.

Lactose Intolerance

Someone who did care a great deal about the Super Bowl was Green Bay Packers superfan Mark Neubauer.

Neubauer, a lawyer who heads Steptoe & Johnson LLP’s Century City office, is a Wisconsin native, Packers shareholder and attendee of four games this season.

For the big game, he held a party in the private West L.A. screening room of a fellow Packers fan who’s a director and producer in the entertainment industry. Neubauer flew in 50 bratwursts and two bags of cheese curds from his favorite butcher in Eagle River, Wis. He even found an L.A. distributor who sold him a keg of Leinenkugel’s, a popular Wisconsin beer. About 50 showed up to cheer and jeer.

Neubauer had taken off his cheesehead hat by the time Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s fourth-down pass sailed incomplete in the final minute, sealing a Packers win.

“They’re pretty heavy,” he said. “They’re great when it’s cold, but not when it’s 74 degrees. Southern California’s climate is not cheesehead-friendly.”

Staff reporter Alfred Lee contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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