By Maria Alejandra Cardona and Nathan Fundino
New Orleans – For Donald Crisonman, Tom Henschel and Gregory Eaton, the Super Bowl Sunday is not only a game – it’s a life commitment.
The trio, known as “Never Miss a Super Bowl Club”, is there from the start, attending each championship match since the first in 1967, and the devotion of the other three members is unshakable.
“My family knows – if you have a wedding or funeral or something like that, Gregory will not be there and they know it,” Gloussa Eaton, 84, from Lansing, Michigan. “So don’t plan the Super Bowl. And my mother and my father made me against me. I would say, “That’s it. It’s me.'”
The sequence continues
Gathered in New Orleans before Sunday’s match, the three men thought about their tradition of several decades, sharing old stories and new debates.
Eaton, a fan of Detroit lions, launches his support behind the Kansas City chiefs in the hope of seeing a three historic peat. Henschel, 82, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Crisonman, 88, from Kennebunk, Maine, both support the Eagles of Philadelphia this time.
“Kansas City here, I come,” started singing Eaton, for the obvious pleasure of his friends. “I want them to break the record because no team won three in a row,” he said. “And I like records to be broken and set.”
Henschel said that being a member of the club still present today was a blessing while Crisonman, who arrived with his original hat of the Super Bowl I and a collection of memories, simply summed up his feelings: ” I consider myself lucky to be still alive. ”
Having witnessed the evolution of the event – $ 12 tickets and empty seats at the Super Bowl I at the world show that it is today – the trio has seen everything.
But they are as excited as ever as the big day approaches.
“I always say that if your team is in the match, it’s like the New Year and on July 4 gathered – it’s how much it goes to the Super Bowl,” smiled Henschel.
New Orleans, a favorite destination
Among the many host cities they have visited, we stand out.
“New Orleans opened it to people of color because they were not going to arrive at the Super Bowl … So I always liked New Orleans for that,” said Eaton.
“It’s my favorite city to watch the Super Bowl. I mean, people here, time is generally good and it’s just because we went down to Mardi Gras, and you know, we have to stay in black hotels and do this. And in the United States of America, we shouldn’t have been like this. Well, New Orleans has helped to change it. »»
By changing stages, dynasties and decades, the link between these fans for life remains unbreakable.
And what brings them back year after year?
“Half is of these clowns,” said Crisonman, pointing his laughing friends.
“I can see them, which is significant for me, very significant. I am so happy that we do it again.
(Additional report by Cath Turner; edition by Sam Holmes)
