NO HORSING AROUND

MIAMI -- Purple rain at the Super Bowl. Golden memories for Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy and the Indianapolis Colts.\nIn a sloppy, exciting, rain-soaked NFL title game Sunday, the Colts defeated the Bears 29-17 behind 247 yards passing from Manning, the star quarterback who finally won the big one after nine record-setting seasons.\n"We put a lot of hard work and a lot of effort into this," said Manning, who was named the game's Most Valuable Player. "It's all happening pretty fast right now. I'm excited. It's something we'll enjoy for quite some time."\nIn a good ol'-fashioned South Florida soaker, the football squirted loose and bounced all over the waterlogged field. It resulted in eight turnovers, including two late interceptions thrown by Chicago's Rex Grossman that sealed the game for Indianapolis.\nThe sight of Manning and Dungy, his soft-spoken coach, soaking up the rain -- along with the confetti and the hugs -- as they held the Vince Lombardi Trophy were moments to remember.\nThey came at the end of this historic meeting between Dungy and Bears coach Lovie Smith of the Bears, the first black head coaches to lead teams to the Super Bowl.\n"I'm proud to represent African-American coaches, to be the first African-American coach to win this," Dungy said. "But more than anything, Lovie Smith and I aren't just the first African-American coaches, but Christian coaches showing you can win doing it the Lord's way. And we're more proud of that."\nFittingly, Dungy's postgame celebration included a long embrace with Smith at midfield and a few whispered words.\nComing in, the two coaches knew that one would have to lose and the other would be the first black to coach his team to a Super Bowl win. And they insisted their friendship would withstand the strains of the Super Bowl spotlight.\n"On this big stage, I wouldn't want anybody else to be there other than Lovie because I have so much respect for him and he's done such a great job," Dungy said before the game.\nOnce it started, very little about the game went by the book.\nIt began with a 92-yard kickoff return by Chicago's Devin Hester for a 7-0 lead 14 seconds into the game. As the evening went on and the rain picked up, the conditions made this look less like a meeting between the league's best teams and more like a survive-the-elements contest.\nThe Colts proved to be much better.\nManning threw a 53-yard touchdown pass to Reggie Wayne and finished 25-for-38 for a touchdown and an interception. He led the Colts on three drives that ended in Adam Vinatieri field goals. The Colts dominated the game statistically -- gaining 430 yards to only 265 for Chicago -- but didn't put it away until early in the fourth quarter, when second-year cornerback Kelvin Hayden intercepted Grossman's pass and returned it 56 yards for a touchdown and a 29-17 lead.\nManning certainly will have plenty of good memories from this one, a game in which he picked and poked through the rain and the Bears to win the title that eluded him and his famous father, Archie, for all those years.