As we prepare for the media tedium this Super Bowl week, it is a good time to appreciate the SI Vault, Sports Illustratedís wonderful web archive of outstanding sports stories from the past.

For example, check out this article by Mark Kram chronicling 1975ís Thrilla in Manila, the epic heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and his arch-nemesis, Joe Frazier. The following is his conclusion:

In his suite the next morning [the victorious Ali] talked quietly.

"I heard some-thin’ once," he said. "When somebody asked a marathon runner what goes through his mind in the last mile or two, he said that you ask yourself, Why am I doin’ this? You get so tired. It takes so much out of you mentally. It changes you. It makes you go a little insane. I was thinkin’ that at the end. Why am I doin’ this? What am I doin’ in here against this beast of a man? It’s so painful. I must be crazy.î

ìI always bring out the best in the men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him."