From Lombardi’s Packers to Belichick’s Patriots, Diehard Fans Have Attended All 57 Super Bowls

The AFL turns the tide

“The most important games, I think, are the next two,” Crisman says. “The AFL was still looked upon as a not real big-league operation.”

1969. The AFL’s New York Jets upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Miami. The legendary game became famous because days earlier Jets Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath had guaranteed victory.

“The fact that the AFL won in the third game was monumental,” Crisman says.

1970. A year later, with its own Hall of Fame quarterback, Len Dawson, Kansas City handily beat the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7, in New Orleans, another upset win for the AFL. Following a 1970 merger, the AFL was absorbed into the NFL.

Memorable moments for these super Super Bowl fans

Favorite games. Beyond those early AFL victories, the six wins for Crisman’s beloved New England Patriots top his list, especially the overtime 34-28 triumph in 2017 in Houston against the Atlanta Falcons. The Pats overcame a second-half 28-3 deficit.

Other games that conjure up good memories for Crisman include the 1971 Super Bowl in Miami, when the Baltimore Colts beat the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 on a last-second field goal, and the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa, when the Pittsburgh Steelers topped the Arizona Cardinals, 27-23, on a last-minute touchdown catch.

Among the games that stand out for Eaton, who is African American, is the 1988 Super Bowl in San Diego, when the Washington Redskins clobbered the Denver Broncos, 42-10. Doug Williams won most valuable player honors as the first Black starting quarterback to lead his team to victory.

Another Eaton favorite: when two Black coaches faced off for the first time, in the 2007 Super Bowl in Miami Gardens, Florida, where Tony Dungy’s Indianapolis Colts bested Lovie Smith’s Chicago Bears, 29-17.

Meanwhile, diehard Steelers fan Henschel revels in all six Pittsburgh wins, most notably 1979’s Super Bowl in Miami, when his team edged the Cowboys, 35-31.

Least favorite games. Crisman calls the two Super Bowls when the underdog New York Giants beat the Patriots, in 2008 in Glendale, Arizona, and in 2012 in Indianapolis, the “two of the worst days of my life.”

The 2008 contest was the only game New England lost that season. To this day, Crisman says he can’t bear to look at photos of the famous catch that Giants receiver David Tyree made, securing the ball by pinning it to his helmet.

Other memorable players. “Well, of course, Tom Brady,” Crisman says admiringly of the longtime Patriots quarterback. He is “the GOAT” — greatest of all time.

Crisman also singled out Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach of Dallas. And he met Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr of the Packers: “The kind of person you thought you knew for many months, even though we only met for 10 minutes.… Gentleman, first class.”

Favorite coaches. Not surprisingly, Crisman chose Bill Belichick, who coached the Patriots for 24 seasons until departing at the end of 2023, and former Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula as the greatest of all time among NFL coaches.

Henschel named Chuck Noll, who coached four of the six Steelers Super Bowl triumphs.

A formerly affordable vacation for the family

Crisman didn’t set out to attend every Super Bowl: The idea just kind of evolved, he says. In the early days he would go with his wife, Beverly.

It was “affordable back then,” he says. “We took our wives probably 16, 18 years. It was like a vacation. We’d see the sights in the area and go to the games.”

His daughter Susan Crisman Metevier, 56, who was in on the Verizon surprise and is also a football fan, will be joining him for the Las Vegas game.

“Without her, I wouldn’t still be going,” Crisman says. “I’m not as mobile as I once was, and sometimes I need wheels under me to get me around the stadium.”

Henschel also wonders how long their little club will last.

“I walk with a cane now, I have hearing aids now and am really slowing down big time,” he says. “I'll give it up after 60.” Henschel means Super Bowl 60 in 2026, when he’ll be 84, still the youngster of the trio. But then he says his wife has heard him say for four years running that he’ll stop the trips.

The halftime shows are less of a draw

Through the decades, the Super Bowl morphed from a championship football game into a global cultural phenomenon. Even people who aren’t football fans tune in for the clever TV commercials and star-studded halftime shows. Typically, Crisman is not watching.

“Super Bowl 1, they had two college bands and a basket of pigeons I think they let fly,” he says. Halftime is “usually time for my bathroom trip.”

Still, he fondly remembers Diana Ross’ performances, the national anthem at 1982’s Super Bowl in Pontiac, Michigan, and her halftime show as part of the 1996 Super Bowl in Tempe, Arizona.

“To be truthful, I don’t know anything about some of these entertainers, other than Reba McEntire,” he says. She’ll sing the national anthem Feb. 11 to kick off Super Bowl 58. 

Early threats to one fan’s streak

Private plane, then train to Miami. Before 1968’s Super Bowl in Miami, an associate with a plane planned to fly Crisman to the game after they finished a business trip. The plane iced up, and the pilot landed at an abandoned Air Force base in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

“After we climbed the fence with our briefcases and suits and ties, a state policeman came along and took us to Columbia,” Crisman says. Attempts to deice the plane failed. On the day before the game, he boarded a train to South Florida, arriving two or three hours before kickoff.

In San Diego without a ticket. Before the 1998 Super Bowl, Crisman had another close call. A ticket he thought he had didn’t pan out, so he pasted a card on his shirt: “Need one ticket, desperately, never missed.”

His luck held. He rode his hotel’s elevator with three doctors, and one told him that a fourth doctor was a no-show.

Crisman had to persuade the other guys that he wasn’t a scalper. He ended up sitting with them.

“We still corresponded many years later,” he says. “The good news was not only were they in a good section where we had a waitress, they each had a flask of Chivas [Regal Scotch] in their back pocket.”

Predictions in 2024. The oldest fan in the Never Miss a Super Bowl Club will be rooting for the Niners with his free ticket this year and predicts they’ll prevail, 24-17.

Henschel hates both teams, so he doesn’t have a strong interest in which one wins. But he thinks the Chiefs will be victorious, 27-24. Eaton, who was devastated when his beloved Lions didn't make the cut, is also favoring the Chiefs, though he didn’t predict a score.

Crisman doesn’t take his Super Bowl memories for granted: 

“I’ve been blessed to be able to do this. Sometimes I feel kind of selfish. I get all kinds of correspondence from people saying they wish they could only attend one. So I get a guilt feeling every now and then.”