I can’t say that I’m brimming with enthusiasm about the Super Bowl, what with (a) my team not being in it, and (b) the two-week break that precedes it, which really kills the post-season viewing momentum in the name of cramming in seven more days of bullshit corporate hype. Having said that, though, this seems an appropriate time to spotlight the work of Aditi Kinkhabwala, a real-life desi woman sportswriter, who had a Super Bowl-related piece this week at Sports Illustrated’s website. In it, she proclaims her love for Indianapolis Colts linebacker Gary Brackett, whose path to football stardom was several times barred by family tragedy:

Less than a week later, [Brackett’s father] Granville passed away, his heart finally having given out.

Brackett finished that season with 25 tackles. Then shortly after the Super Bowl, in February 2004, [Brackett’s mother] Sandra was rushed to the hospital for an emergency hysterectomy. She never left, an operating-table stroke putting her into what would be a fatal coma.

Brackett went back out to Indy that summer, until, just before mini-camp, he found out his brother Greg had leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. Gary told head coach Tony Dungy the outside shot of staving off Greg’s leukemia was more important than fighting for a roster spot and he skipped the camp.

A few weeks after he made the donation Brackett fought his way onto Dungy’s roster. He again played special teams, before pounding Denver for 11 tackles in his one start in January. And before Greg, despite the transplant, succumbed to the cancer in February.

The other reason Aditi loves Brackett, besides his triumph over the odds, is that he played his college ball at Rutgers. In addition to her column at SI.com, Kinkhabwala is a staff sports writer at the Bergen Record in New Jersey, where her beat is Rutgers sports. She covered the unlikely success of the Scarlet Knights football team this past season, and is now deep in the men’s and women’s basketball seasons.

Though she’s a perfectly fine beat writer, the sister’s most interesting pieces have been quirky ones on SI.com where she covers unusual athletic activities or angles. Her previous piece, two weeks ago, was about a grandmothers’ basketball league in Iowa. Check it out:

And it’s all done in the middy blouses, stockings and black bloomers women hoopsters wore in the 1920s.

“Are you kidding?” McPherson said when asked about this-century clothing. “The uniforms cover up all our flab. Who would want to wear shorts?”

Now at eight teams, the league plays roughly once a month from January through May, in high school gyms. Except for the Cedar Rapids Sizzlers — they play in a church.

The youngest player is 50, the oldest is 81. There’s the Hot Pink Grannies (yep, they wear hot pink socks) and the Ossian Good Old Girls and the Centre Point Curvaceous Chicks, who are sponsored by Curves. …

The league allows everyone to go to the “State Tournament” because, McPherson said, “in Iowa, every girl’s dream was to go to the state tournament.”

An archive of the sister’s stories is here. I’d be curious to know what other desis are out there covering sports in the US mainstream media.