WILL THE VIKINGS EVER WIN THE SUPER BOWL?

The question may be of slightly less import than ""Is there life on Mars?"" or ""Does Jimmy Carter smoke pot?"" but since the entire state of Minnesota slumps into deep psychological depression following the by now traditional Super Bowl defeat, one can't knock sportswriter Klobuchar (Tarkenton, 1976) and Viking linebacker Siemon for seeking an answer. As they note, after the fourth Viking loss, this time to the Oakland Raiders on January 9, 1977, ""The Vikings had surpassed William Jennings Bryan in fiascos and were closing in on Mussolini's army."" Siemon's contribution, besides a sensational performance on the fateful day, is his journal of the 1976 season; in it, his camaraderie with his teammates endures through missteps, as befits a man who runs a weekly Christian prayer group during the season. Klobuchar's wit and irreverence provide a nice counterpoint to the seriousness of Siemon. They aim to show that the Vikings, individually and collectively, do not have some fatal flaw that says they must always be also-rans; nor, fox that matter, are they the stolid, orderly, well-disciplined paragons they're sometimes made out to be. And after all the head-scratching and second-guessing, the unremarkable truth is that the Vikings lost ""four Super Bowl games to superior teams."" Obvious--but the book, the story of their travails, is one of the brighter gridiron efforts of the season.