Our featured speaker, "The Super Bowl Guy" Don Crisman, along with his daughter Susan, talked about attending every Superbowl as a member of the "Never Miss a Superbowl Club".
Don Crisman started his presentation by honoring John Downing, noting how sad he was not to see him in the room with us. John always enjoyed Don's visit to Rotary. If you haven't heard of Don, he is an 86-year young Kennebunk resident who has the distinction of attending every single Super Bowl since its inception 57 years ago. He was part of a 6-men strong Club that is down to 3 and one of 7 living people out of the 16 on the official NFL list of perfect Super Bowl attendance.
Don brought some great keepsakes from the games over the years such as tickets and photos of him with various players, including a photo of the VISA halftime commercial he was featured in 12 years ago. Because of that commercial, Don is an official card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild! One of the best show-and-tell items he brought was a cardboard cut-out of a dog from Super Bowl LV, the infamous 'Covid Bowl'. This Super Bowl visit was a near-miss for Don, as the NFL said they couldn't issue any more tickets. One of the members of Don's Super Bowl Club, Tom Henschel, was interviewed by a Florida news station, lamenting about his Club missing their 55th Super Bowl because of Covid and the NFL's decision to limit ticket sales. NFL, not one to take bad press lightly, reached out and said, give us your credit card numbers and we'll get you some tickets. Don recounted what a weird experience that was, with the 'Mask Police' who were going around issuing warnings and with three warnings if you weren't following correct mask protocol, you were asked to leave the stadium. 40,000 cardboard cutouts sat in the stands to replicate the look of actual people for the TV cameras. Don brought one home as a souvenir, a very distinguished looking dog in an English Tudor costume.
Don shared that his favorite halftime performance was Diana Ross, who performed twice. He said he isn't much of a fan of the recent ones, saying he's not sure that is even music. We learned that the Super Bowl was originally called the World Championship Game. The original commissioner of what would become the NFL, "Pete" Rozelle, thought it was important for the word 'world' to be part of the name and anything else would be 'undignified'. But the name Super Bowl was coined, named after the kids' toy, the Super Ball, and the name stuck. Don's all-time favorite game, as a die-hard Pats fan, is no surprise, the famous comeback game when the Patriots were down 28-3 Atlanta Falcons and came roaring back after half-time to win the game. Don has seen ticket prices start at $12 at the beginning and balloon up to $2500, what he paid last year. He credits his daughter Susan for helping him get to games these last 7 years and he hopes to make it to Vegas in February and to see his Pats there.