DONALD CRISMAN HASN’T MISSED A SUPER BOWL SINCE THE GAME BEGAN, AND HE HAS THE MEMORABILIA TO PROVE IT
By Rhonda Reinhart
When Joe Namath famously raised his index finger and jogged off the field after his New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, Donald Crisman was there. When the Miami Dolphins took down the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII, becoming the only team in NFL history to finish a season undefeated, Crisman was there, too. He was also there when the New England Patriots pulled off the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history in Super Bowl LI and when the Kansas City Chiefs eked out a nail-biting overtime win in Super Bowl LVIII. Crisman, in fact, has witnessed every major Super Bowl moment in history because he has attended every Super Bowl since the game began in 1967.
Crisman’s tickets from the first 19 Super Bowls he attended, beginning in 1967. His collection, which is available in Heritage’s August 23-25 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, includes tickets from all 58 Super Bowls.
Back then, the event was known as the AFL–NFL World Championship Game, and Crisman was a 30-year-old Rhode Island native living in Denver who had befriended some employees of a local bank. Through a partnership with the Denver Broncos, the bank had scored tickets to that first big game, but takers were few and far between. That meant Crisman got to tag along with his bank buddies to watch the Green Bay Packers crush the Chiefs in a 35-10 win at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. As Crisman remembers it, the stadium was nearly half empty, and their sideline tickets had a $12 face value. “The bank provided our tickets for probably 12 or 14 years after that,” Crisman says. “So we were lucky.”
“Lucky” is a word that comes up a lot when the 88-year-old retired salesman reminisces about his 58-year Super Bowl stretch. A longtime resident of Kennebunk, Maine, Crisman never played sports in school (“I was kind of skinny, and I didn’t run that fast either,” he says), but he always loved football. He grew up watching the New York Giants on his family’s black-and-white TV, but his allegiance soon took a turn: “I became a Patriots fan as soon as the franchise was created in 1960,” he says. Lucky for Crisman, no team has played in the Super Bowl more times than the Patriots.
Crisman started collecting pennants at Super Bowl II in 1968. This group of 25 is available in Heritage’s August 23-25 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction.
Crisman attended the first 42 Super Bowls with one of his friends from the bank, Stan Whitaker, who started referring to the duo as the Never Miss a Super Bowl Club. They thought they were the club’s only two members, but it turns out there were more Super Bowl superfans out there, including Pittsburgh Steelers devotee Tom Henschel. A few days before 1983’s Super Bowl XVII (a Miami Dolphins-Washington Redskins matchup at the Rose Bowl), Crisman and Whitaker were in line for a taping of The Tonight Show when Henschel overheard them talking about their Super Bowl streak. “I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me – I’ve been to every game – I thought I was the only one,’ ” Henschel told the Los Angeles Times in 2022. “We exchanged phone numbers, and the three of us hooked up every year during the Super Bowl.”
The Never Miss a Super Bowl Club eventually added three more members: Bob Cook (a Green Bay Packers fan from Wisconsin), Larry Jacobson (a 49ers fan from San Francisco) and Gregory Eaton (a Detroit Lions fan from Michigan). Over the years, the guys have been interviewed for countless news stories, and they gained national notoriety in 2010 when Crisman and three other club members appeared in a Visa commercial narrated by Morgan Freeman. “The commercial was fun to do and certainly increased our popularity,” Crisman says. “It got us a few other gigs. So that was a good thing because this hobby is pretty expensive.”
Crisman with the two other surviving members of the Never Miss a Super Bowl Club: Tom Henschel (left) and Gregory Eaton (right)
Today, just three members of the club remain: Crisman, Henschel and Eaton. “The NFL published an official list just before Super Bowl 50, and at that time, they said there were only eight fans and eight media or family members who had never missed a Super Bowl,” Crisman says. “We now believe at this point in time we are the only three fans left.”
While all three men remain die-hard fans of their respective favored franchises, as the decades have gone by, the games have become less and less about watching two football teams vie for a sterling silver trophy. “It is probably equally as much about getting together with the guys again,” Crisman says.
Crisman’s collection includes Super Bowl programs and media guides dated from 1967 to 2016.
For every memory Crisman holds dear about his 58 trips to the Super Bowl, including the six times he watched his beloved Patriots take home the title, he has a tangible piece of memorabilia to represent it. Tickets from every game, programs and press guides dating from 1967 to 2016 and a collection of pennants he once proudly displayed in his home are just a few of the highlights. His assemblage also includes decades’ worth of Super Bowl buttons and pins, as well as signed caps, shirts and ephemera, including a 1970 letter Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt wrote to Crisman regarding the merger of the AFL and NFL.
Now Crisman’s mementos are headed to Heritage’s August 23-25 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction. “It was a major decision for me to put the goods up for auction,” he says. “But I think it’s the right thing to do.” He credits his age, a house that needs some fixing up, and encouragement from his wife and four kids for helping him decide to part with a set of treasures nearly six decades in the making.
Crisman’s Super Bowl pinback buttons date back to that first championship game in 1967.
Crisman isn’t sure if he’ll be able to make it to next year’s Super Bowl. The game’s four-figure ticket prices have become too costly (in a surprise turn of events, Verizon provided his tickets for the 2024 game), and travel isn’t as easy as it once was for the lifelong football fan. But Crisman has had close calls in the past (an ice storm, health issues and a global pandemic are just a few of the obstacles he has had to overcome), so anything is possible for a founding member of the Never Miss a Super Bowl Club. But no matter what happens with Super Bowl LIX, Crisman feels fortunate for the run he has had.
“I’ve been one lucky dude to pull this off, and I thank God,” he says. “It’s been a hell of a ride, and I’m grateful to everyone who has helped me along the way.”
RHONDA REINHART is editor of Intelligent Collector.