Gridiron glasnost: Boris Shapiro`s introduction to American football left a bitter taste in his mouth. As a child in the former Soviet Union, Shapiro read a book that was intended to portray football as a barbaric sport that mirrored life in the West.
That image dissipated soon after he immigrated to the United States in 1979. Thirteen years later, the 31-year-old Buffalo Grove resident has grown to love the sport and got the chance to share that enthusiasm with millions of his former comrades.
Shapiro recently joined Wilmette`s Igor Fialko in the Chicago studios of TLI International to tape a Russian broadcast of this year`s Super Bowl. The telecast was shown Feb. 29 throughout the former Soviet Union and was seen by 80 million to 120 million people.
”The hardest thing was trying to come up with Russian words for positions like tight end and quarterback,” Shapiro said. ”You can`t really translate things word for word, because the Russian people aren`t going to understand what`s going on.”
Shapiro and Fialko had no previous television experience, but they performed like pros, according to TLI`s Vesna Tomic.
