SUPER BOWL A SNAP FOR CROSS.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

He's a CBS survivor, yet Randy Cross doesn't fit the definition of CBS ``Survivor.''

Without forming secret alliances, eating roasted rats or running around the ``NFL Today'' studios buck naked - although you gotta think the producers have considered anything for publicity at this point - Cross has expertly managed to stick around for the next episode on an NFL TV island ravaged by changeover the last few years.

Sunday, he digs in for his fourth Super Bowl as a network broadcaster - one more than he got to as a player for the San Francisco 49ers during their glorious decade of the '80s.

It's a credit to Cross' primitive NFL instincts. For the last 11 years of his post-professional career, he has continued to blend in and effectively contribute without unnecessarily calling attention to himself and wrecking his image.

``Randy works his tail off week in and week out,'' said Terry Ewert, CBS Sports' executive producer. ``His work is exceptional because of that.''

The former Crespi High of Encino star and UCLA All-American center has made broadcasting look like a snap since retiring from the NFL after 13 years in 1989, right after the 49ers' Super Bowl XXIII win over Cincinnati.

CBS hired him as a game analyst that '89 season and he ended up in the CBS Radio booth for Super Bowl XXIV. When CBS lost the NFC rights in '93, Cross crossed over to NBC and rode out that network's AFC coverage through the '97 Super Bowl.

Back in the football biz in '98, CBS happily reclaimed Cross for its studio show, although he was lent to the game-broadcast booth again this season for a time early on to replace the ailing Sam Wyche.

In the new glass-booth, pregame-show studio with which CBS has fiddled around, Cross (and Craig James) offset the nonsense provided by Mike Ditka and Jerry Glanville with the kind of information that you'd find on Fox from former players Cris Collinsworth and Howie Long.

``I've never been very good at half measures,'' Cross said. ``It's the same with this as it was playing: watching tape, making phone calls, typing notes into the computer, e-mailing stuff to executive producer Eric Mann.

``A lot of it are old habits from being a game analyst. But the best thing about (the studio work) is I'm not just focused on one game each week.''

Except this week, he has to be.

The media-day festivities that take place on the Tuesday before each Super Bowl make Cross laugh now. As a player, he could handle the few hundred newspaper reporters try to come up with new angles for stories. As a professional information hunter and gatherer, Cross won't even bother joining the crush that has added hundreds more radio and TV microphone holders.

``I can't believe these media throngs now,'' Cross said. ``A couple of thousand people are crammed onto one sideline. It used to be done in the team hotels, one group at a time.''

Cross has the advantage of being part of the network covering the game. It isn't total access, but in Tampa, where exotic dancers must adhere to a six-foot rule with the customers, Cross can get closer to the players than most.

``When you get out of this atmosphere of early in the week and talk to players and coaches away from this stuff - on the street, even in the nightclubs and bars - you're much more liable to get things you can use,'' said Cross.

Again, whatever it takes to survive.

--Technobabble: Aside from new graphics, CBS' Super Bowl telecast will feature a multiangle replay system for the first time that network people are equating to the film ``The Matrix'' or one of the Gap dancing commercials.

EyeVision, developed by CBS Sports engineers with Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Princeton Video Image and Core Digital Technologies, will use 33 synchronized cameras placed around the perimeter of Raymond James Stadium to freeze a player or a play and then examine it from a variety of angles.

``It's probably something that can be used in every major sporting event around the world, as well as for entertainment and commercial projects,'' said Sean McManus, CBS Sports' president.

It has taken about two years to develop the gizmo, with $2.5 million spent on research. It'll be available for replay decisions on the field.

--Final Super spitwads: CBS officials have been careful not to make a prediction on the TV ratings for the contest, which for some is a lead-in to the second season of ``Survivor.'' ``It'll be very big,'' says McManus. ``Especially if the fourth quarter is exciting.'' . . . The network has 31 markets, including L.A., that will have access to the high-definition TV feed with Kevin Harlan and Darryl Johnson doing the call. . . . There are 3,000 ``working'' media in Tampa for Sunday's game, with 400 credentials issued to international reporters. . . . Tampa organizers estimate 800 million people in 190 countries will watch some or all of the game on TV. . . . Did you know CBS' Phil Simms was the first to do the ``I'm going to Disneyland'' commercial, after the '87 Super Bowl in Pasadena? . . . In an ESPN.com poll asking which Super Bowl performance people are most anticipating, more than half of the 50,000 voters picked Aerosmith, while 11 percent voted for N'Sync and 4 percent took the Backstreet Boys.

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES

--One last call for Matt Millen. The former Raiders linebacker who recently joined the Detroit Lions' front office to run the organization, will do the radio-analyst coverage with ``Monday Night Football'' radio partners Howard David and Boomer Esiason on the Westwood One/CBS Radio Sports production heard locally on KNX-AM (1070). Since the game figures to be a defensive struggle, and CBS' TV coverage has a host of former NFL offensive players on its roster, Millen's insights will be even more pertinent.

--ABC has decided to renew the contracts of everyone on the ``Monday Night Football'' broadcast team - including Dennis Miller and Eric Dickerson - but the status of producer Don Ohlmeyer is basically up to him. Right move. They have to give this crew at least one more year to see if it can shape up before they start shipping them out.

--Rich Marotta's ``Neutral Corner,'' a two-hour weekly boxing radio show that debuts tonight at 10 p.m. on KXTA-AM (1150), has booked Richard Steele and Sugar Shane Mosley live plus Hector Camacho Jr. on tape as opening-night guests. This, with the addition of Tony Bruno's syndicated show on the Fox Radio Network, continue to point AM-1150 in the right direction for success in this town.

WHAT CHOKES

--The fragrance of football on SuperBowl.com did a great job of masking the media's attention focused on Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis on Tuesday. Calling Lewis the ``crowd pleaser'' of media day, the refer link to the story mentioned that ``the mob of reporters'' around Lewis ``reached 20 deep and took nearly 10 minutes to settle in . . . (and) the star linebacker was up to the task.'' No mention of why the media was interested in talking to him, of course.

--The ESPN branding continues. The sports channel's publicity office authenticates a report that a second child has been named after the network - Espn Curiel, born to Jason and Katherine Curiel of Corpus Christi, Texas, last September. The first known ESPN namesake, Espen Blondeel of Mewaygo, Mich., a diaper dandy whose parents thought it up after watching ``SportsCenter,'' celebrates his first birthday today.

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