Trio that went to every Super Bowl sees game together for likely last time

Don Crisman, 85, Gregory Eaton, 82, and Tom Henschel, 80, will be among the approximately 80,000 spectators at the Los Angeles Rams-Cincinnati Bengals match on Sunday at SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles. It will be Super Bowl 56 and the 56th time they have taken to the field in the deciding game of the United States football tournament.

Apparently, it will be their last time as a group. Crisman, the eldest, warned the others that the final of the 2021/22 season of the NFL (the American football league) has everything to be his farewell: “I feel that we are approaching the end”.

The other two show a greater disposition. Henschel’s goal is to reach the 2026 decision. “I think I still have a few years ahead of me. I’m going to try to reach 60 Super Bowls. But age is coming for all of us,” smiled the youngest of the class.

The tradition began in 1967, when the final was called the AFL-NFL World Championship. The Green Bay Packers then beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, about 10 miles from where the Rams and Bengals will duel this weekend.

The ticket price, at the time, was very different. The trio, who paid US$ 2,500 (about R$ 13,000) per ticket to see the game at SoFi Stadium, say they paid about 400 times less to watch the decisions of the 60s. Since then, the value has grown. , in opposition to the so-called “club of those who never lost the Super Bowl”, which was once bigger.

That left Crisman, Eaton and Henschel, who live in different cities across the United States and meet annually for the final. Last year, due to restrictions linked to Covid-19, they had to watch the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 31-9 triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs in Tampa, a few rows apart. Now they will be close again, and probably for the last time.