Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Super Bowl LIII (2019) Sunday

Randy Seaver has an annual tradition of focusing Saturday Night Genealogy Fun the day before the Super Bowl on the big game, and this year is no exception.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is:

(1) What is your favorite National Football League team?  [For those who are not American football fans but fans of other sports teams, substitute your favorite team.]  Why are you a fan of this team?  How long have you been a fan of your favorite team?

(2) What is the genealogy of your favorite team?  When did it start playing, what leagues has it played in?

(3) Have you worked for the team in any capacity, or attended games?  What is your best memory of your favorite team's history?

(4) Predict the score of the Rams-Patriots game on Sunday.

(5) Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook.

Here's my contribution.

1.  My favorite NFL team is the Minnesota Vikings.  Way back when I was very young, I remember watching a football game and thinking, "I should really have a favorite team."  I picked the Vikings, who were playing in that game, because I liked their helmet logo better.  That was about 1969 or so, so I've been a fan for almost 50 years now, the great majority of my life.  I have stuck with them through all four Super Bowl losses, which was a record, for most times going to the Super Bowl and not winning a game.  In fact, I was upset when the Denver Broncos broke the record with five losses and no wins; it was a lousy record, but it was ours.

2.  According to Wikipedia, the Vikings joined the National Football League in 1960 and began playing in 1961.  It was in the stand-alone National Football League and then became part of the new National Football Conference after the AFL-NFL merger in 1969.  Something I just learned from reading the Wikipedia page is that the Vikings were the last (old) NFL champions before the merger.

3.  I have never worked for the Vikings.  I have attended only one game, when they played the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans), on December 21, 1980.  That was my mother's big surprise Christmas present to me (and the rest of the family) that year.  My parents were living in San Antonio, and I was going to visit over Christmas break from college.  My mother told me that she had a very special present for me.  I read in the newspaper that the Vikings were going to be in Houston and managed to correctly guess that was the present.  I was very excited to go to the game (my first NFL game attended) but dismayed (not surprised, unfortunately) when the Vikings lost.

I know one person who played for the Vikings.  I met Joey Browner when he was at the University of Southern California.  I was thrilled when he was picked by my favorite team.  I also met Fran Tarkenton, the great Vikings quarterback, once, at a golf tournament in Monterey.  He was grumpy and snapped at me when I wished him a happy birthday (but did recover and apologize).

My favorite memory of the Vikings is from when they played against the Oakland Raiders (coincidentally my second favorite NFL team) in Super Bowl XI in 1977.  As I had already been through three Vikings Super Bowl losses, I was anticipating the worst, so while I made some bets with friends for the Vikings to win, I also made several other bets to mitigate my losses, in particular that the Vikings would set a record.  While that was the year that they set the record for most Super Bowl losses without a win, I knew going in that they would have a record for the oldest starter in a Super Bowl, which was Alan Page.  They also set the record for most Super Bowl appearances that year, as they were the first team to go to the big game four times.

4.  I have read that the Patriots are favored in the game.  I have no idea what the score will be, but I will predict a Rams victory because I absolutely do not want the Patriots to tie the Steelers for all-time Super Bowl wins.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Super Bowl 2018 Edition

The Super Bowl, and the NFL in general, are near and dear to my heart, so I really like this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

(1) The Super Bowl is on Sunday, 4 February 2018 in the USA.  The New England Patriots are playing the Philadelphia Eagles for the National Football League championship up in Minnesota (an indoor stadium!).  The winners get to go to Disney World.  

(2) Predict the score for this game.  You have to predict the winning team and the closest to the actual score (point differential summed for both teams) to be the winner.  The winner of this contest gets announced next week in a Genea-Musings blog post.  

(3) Tell a story about your experiences playing football or watching professional football games.  Did you go to football games?  Who in your family was the real fan of the game?  What were the pregame routines?  How do you, or your family, react to good plays or bad plays, or wins or losses?

(4) Provide your entry in a comment to this blog post, in a blog post of your own, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.  Be sure to tell me about your post in a comment to this post.

1.  Well, I do love football, but I don't like who ended up in this year's Super Bowl.  I was rooting for the other two teams in each of the conference championships.  I've been a Vikings fan for more than 40 years, and they would have been playing at home.  But such is life.  And Disneyland is so much better than Walt Disney World anyway.

2.  I have to decide if I want to go with the odds or with what I really want to happen.  Since Randy isn't giving out a prize for the winner of his contest, I'm going with what I want.  I'm going to say Eagles over Patriots, 24-20.  (Please let it come true!)

3.  I've been to several professional football games.  For Saturday Night Genealogy Fun last week I wrote about the two Super Bowl halftime shows I have performed in.  During the five years I was in the USC Trojan Marching Band, we also performed at halftime during several regular-season games for the Los Angeles Raiders and Anaheim Rams.  We were never permitted to actually sit in the stands and watch these games.  At least with the Raiders and Rams we walked onto the sidelines a few minutes before the half ended, so we were able to watch a little bit of the game (and I remember always feeling very, very small while standing next to the pro players!).  For the Super Bowls we didn't see squat except on television monitors before we went out to the field.

I have splurged a few times on attending NFL games.  While I was still living in Los Angeles, one year I went to a Raiders postseason game, and it wasn't even that expensive.  In Oakland, some friends and I went to a Raiders game when they played the Pittsburgh Steelers, because one of the friends is a huge Steeler fan.  I think I have been to one or two additional Raiders games over the years.  And once I went to a San Francisco 49ers game with some sort of group deal, but I was rooting against them.

Both of my parents watched football, so I grew up with it.  My second favorite team, the Raiders, was one of my mother's favorite teams.  My dad's favorite teams were the Rams, whom I don't like at all, and the Eagles, which makes another good reason to root for them this year.  I don't remember any pregame routines, but I do remember my mother would react loudly to plays she liked or didn't.  She's also the person who taught me about "football tushies", yet another reason to enjoy the game.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: One Thing You've Done

For Saturday Night Genealogy Fun this week Randy Seaver is using a meme that has been making hte rounds on Facebook.  I posted a response there already, so I have an answer ready!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

(1) There have been some posts on Facebook to tell one thing that you've done in your life that your Facebook friends have never done.

(2) For this SNGF, write about something that you have done in your life that your friends have not done, as far as you know.

Share your act with your readers (and friends) in your own blog post, in a comment on this blog post, or in a Facebook post.

So here's mine:

I know I have several friends who have done this, but I'm pretty sure none of my genealogy friends have.  While I was a member of the USC Marching Band (The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe), I performed in two Super Bowl halftime shows and at one World Series game.

On January 25, 1987, Super Bowl XXI was held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.  The teams were the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos.  I was a member of the percussion section, playing cymbals.  The halftime show was choreographed and put on by Disney.  Unfortunately, Disney doesn't really like live music, because people can make mistakes, so we band members didn't actually get to play.  More unfortunately, because we weren't playing, it was decided that percussion section members wouldn't carry our own instruments.  Instead, we had to carry wind instruments.  I had a trumpet.

Mickey Rooney was part of the show.  The band was marching in two concentric circles, one circle going clockwise and the other counterclockwise.  Rooney was supposed to step between two band members and walk out to the middle of the field.  He missed his cue, which was a few people ahead of me in the counterclockwise circle.  He decided he would walk in front of me.  He had been a really rude, obnoxious person during the rehearsals, and I strongly considered tripping him.  Then one thought immediately popped into my head:  "Art will kill me" (Art being Dr. Arthur C. Bartner, the band director).  So I let him through.

At some point I managed to get one of those foam hands as a souvenir.  It was a Broncos hand.  I sent it to my mother as a memento of my gig.  And what did she do?  Complain that it wasn't a Giants hand, the team she preferred.  Sometimes you just can't please someone!

On January 31, 1988, Super Bowl XXII was held at Jack Murphy Stadium (which no longer exists) in San Diego, California.  The Broncos were back, but this time they played the Washington Redskins.  This show was a lot better, because the band actually got to play!  The show was choreographed by Radio City Music Hall.  We had 88 pianos on the field, with 88 keys each, for 1988, and the featured performer was Chubby Checker, who was much nicer than Mickey Rooney.  It was a great show, and I was able to identify myself in a clip from a video I found online.

I'm the cymbal player on the far right

The World Series game was also in 1988, when the Oakland A's played the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The date was either October 15 or 16, because it was at Dodger Stadium.  Then I was playing clarinet.  The main thing I remember about our performance is that the clarinets were near the back of the band, and after we had finished playing one song I stepped back and thought I had run into a wall — but it was actually José Canseco!  I had had no idea that he was so tall.  He thought it was pretty funny.

Wordless Wednesday