‘It’s about friendship’: Super Bowl Five and Never Miss A Super Bowl members have seen it all

When Gregory Eaton went to the second AFL-NFL World Championship Game — the Super Bowl moniker hadn't been coined yet in 1968 — he couldn't stay at the same private club as the five white businessmen he joined on the trip.

Instead, Eaton, who is Black, stayed at the Hampton House, an iconic segregation-era hotel in the Brownsville neighborhood outside Miami.

Through 54 years of attending Super Bowl games, Eaton, 81, eventually watched as Doug Williams became the first Black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl (beating the Denver Broncos 42-10 in Super Bowl 22) and saw two Black head coaches — Indianapolis' Tony Dungy and Chicago's Lovie Smith — lead their respective teams to Super Bowl 44.

That game was played in the same area where Eaton had to seek separate accommodations in 1968.

"When I first came to Miami, I had to stay at that (hotel) and now we had two Black head coaches," the Lansing, Michigan, native said of attending Super Bowl 44. "That was one of my special games. That was it because I never dreamed I would (see that)."

Members of the Never Miss A Super Bowl Club from left to right: Don Crisman, Tom Henschel and Gregory Eaton for Super 52. (Photo: Richard Gibson)

A member of the Never Miss A Super Bowl Club, Eaton and fellow club members Don Crisman and Tom Henschel have attended every Super Bowl game. The same is true for the four surviving members of the Super Bowl Five: Harvey Rothenberg, Sylvan Schefler, Larry McDonald and Lew Rapaport. The fifth member, Al Schragis, died in 2018.

All three members of the Never Miss club are set to extend their streaks by attending Super Bowl 55 at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 7. But only two members of the Super Bowl Five — Rothenberg and Schefler — will be able to attend their 55th consecutive game.

Rapaport had already decided to skip his first Super Bowl because of the coronavirus. McDonald was planning to go until he contracted COVID-19 last week.

"I'm in bed and my beautiful wife is my nurse, so I'm going to miss it," said McDonald, 86, who lives outside Atlanta. "I'm going to be there in spirit. I won't be there in person but … This is just a bad one. We'll get back up next year, I promise you."

Rothenberg, 87, was shocked to hear on Sunday that McDonald had gotten sick.

"He sounded terribly. I was very worried about him," said Rothenberg, who lives in Boca Raton, Florida, and is taking his two grandsons to the game. "(It's the) Super Bowl Two (now)."

These streaks had already been in jeopardy this year. The NFL earlier informed members of both groups that the league could not guarantee tickets because the COVID-19 pandemic would limit the number of available Super Bowl tickets — only 22,000 fans will attend the game.

But the NFL eventually came through with tickets for members of both groups.

Despite the pandemic, five of them are braving the game. Rothenberg has had both of his COVID-19 vaccine shots. Crisman, Eaton and Schefler have had their first shots.

"I'd rather have both, but it's not possible," said Crisman, 84, who lives in Kennebunk Beach, Maine. "At least I got one in me. My doctor says I should have 20-25% protection, but it's better than none."

Said Rothenberg: "Hopefully, we'll be protected with the vaccinations. I hope."

Henschel, who says his maternal grandfather died during the 1918 influenza pandemic, said he won't get vaccinated.

"I'm a very fearless person," Henschel said. "I honestly feel like I'm immune to  it."

Two Super Bowl groups, one goal

Because of their streaks, members of both groups have become quasi-celebrities at recent Super Bowls.

They have been featured in newspaper articles across the country and mentioned in Super Bowl programs. They were feted by the NFL during Super Bowl 50 and have been interviewed on national television, from "Fox and Friends" to NBC's "Today" show.

“I met ('Today' host Savannah Guthrie) on an airplane going down to the 49th (game) and she just got it," said Schefler, 82, who lives in New York. "It's a story about friendship. It's really not a story — yes, it's the Super Bowl, a big game, the raison d'etre — but it's about friendship."

Friendship led to the creation of the Super Bowl Five group. 

Rothenberg, Schefler and Rapaport often spent the holidays around Christmas at the then-Doral Country Club, which was owned by Schragis, and often became the NFL headquarters during Super Bowls held in Miami.

Rothenberg then connected McDonald with Rothenberg's fellow New Yorkers.

"I had gone to the first Super Bowl with Sylvan and some other guys," Rothenberg said. "Larry McDonald went to the first two Super Bowls, and I ended up doing some business with him and became friendly, so I said, ‘Why don’t you join us?' And by the third Super Bowl, we were all together."

The group had as many as eight in those early years, but three dropped out the next two Super Bowls.

"And we ended up with five," Rothenberg said. "And we have jackets and coats. We have Super Bowl underwear from the Super Bowl Five. We even have our own website."

The five were inseparable until Schragis' streak ended after 51 Super Bowls when he had to go into hospice care and died at age 87 in 2018 — the day before Super Bowl 52.

Membership in the Never Miss A Super Bowl Club has been far more fluid than in the Super Bowl Five over the years.

An original group of five was down to two — Crisman and the late Stanley Whitaker — by Super Bowl 3.

"But we continued on and we started to adopt the name, 'Never Missed a Super Bowl Club' somewhere around Super Bowl 11 or 12," Crisman said. "It was kind of like we were challenging one another. I think there’s still a little bit of that. No one wants to drop out and it’s fun to relive the past when you get together.”

Over the years, the group would go on to add Henschel, Robert Cook and Larry Jacobson, whom Crisman calls "the streak master" for attending 51 Super Bowls, 54 Rose Bowls and every Summer Olympics between 1968 and 2016.

Don Crisman, right, with Stanley Whitaker at Super Bowl 3 at the Orange Bowl. Whitaker got Crisman started on the 55-year Super
Bowl Journey. (Photo: Courtesy of Donald Crisman)

Whitaker's Super Bowl streak ended in 2008 after 42 games. He died at age 91 in 2013. The remaining foursome — Crisman, Henschel, Jacobson and Cook — appeared in a Visa Super Bowl commercial in 2010.

But Cook died in 2011 at age 79 after attending the first 44 Super Bowls. Jacobson died at 78 in 2017, but not before recruiting Eaton to officially join him, Crisman and Henschel.

“I was getting interviewed and I was in the paper," said Eaton, who lives in West Palm Beach, Florida in the winter. "Larry … saw me and he called me, got in touch with me and he asked would I like to join the club. I said sure."

Eaton, who is a Michigan State booster, went to the first Super Bowl by himself with a ticket he scored from Hall of Famer and Michigan State product Herb Adderley, who played in four of the first six Super Bowls as a member of the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys.

Before joining the Never Miss group, Eaton had gotten tickets mostly through his Michigan State connections and took his uncle to 35 Super Bowls until his uncle was 96. Eaton said last year was the first time he had gotten tickets through the NFL.

"I think they should be taking care of us till we die," Easton said, "like Larry."

'Tonight Show' tickets led to joining group

Henschel, 79, first met Crisman and Whitaker when he was standing in line with his wife for tickets to a different event — "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." Henschel heard them and their wives talking about their Super Bowl streak.

"I introduced myself and said, ‘I think I overheard you say you’ve been to all the Super Bowls,'" said Henschel, who lives near Pittsburgh and has a winter home 20 miles from Raymond James Stadium. "It was Don and his wife and Stan and his wife. … The three couples became automatically friends."

Henschel had gone to the first Super Bowl thanks to his job tending bar in Chicago. One of the Bears players who frequented the establishment left a pair of tickets for him to the game in Los Angeles. His streak almost came to an early end when he didn't have tickets to Super Bowl 3 in Miami, where the New York Jets shocked the Baltimore Colts 16-7. 

"I asked about eight players; couldn’t get a ticket," Henschel said. "Joe Namath was a local legend back where I’m from. I got to have a ticket. They said, ‘Aw, just go down. You’ll get a ticket. Sure enough. I took the weekend off, went down to the Orange Bowl and three hours before game time, I got a ticket for $12.”

Henschel counts the Pittsburgh Steelers' four championships in the 1970s among his favorite Super Bowl memories, especially their 35-31 victory against the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl 13.

"I called my mom and dad up in Pittsburgh and I say, ‘Mom and dad, you’ve got to come to Miami,''' Henschel said. "It was my mom’s first year to the Super Bowl. I had taken my dad to Super Bowl 5 and 9 and 10. … When we got to the stadium (for Super Bowl 13), we didn’t know where our seats were at. Here they were on the 50-yard line. That was my favorite game.”

The four living members of the Super Bowl Five: From left, Lew Rapaport, Larry McDonald, Harvey Rothenberg and Sylvan Schefler at Super Bowl LIV in Miami. (Photo: Photo courtesy of Anne Roberts)

Giants come through for New Yorkers

It's not surprising that the Giants' two victories against the New England Patriots would be high on the list of top moments among the New Yorkers in the Super Bowl Five: Rothenberg, Schefler and Rapaport.

Rothenberg had season tickets until the Giants moved to New Jersey in 1971. Schefler, who still lives in New York, remains a season-ticket holder for the team.

Both cite David Tyree's "helmet catch," when the Giants upset the then-undefeated Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl 42, as their favorite memory.

Rothenberg brought his two grandsons, who are from Boston and are Patriots fans, to the game.

"They were sitting two rows in front of me, and when the Patriots were winning 14-10 in about the middle of the fourth quarter, the older one, Jake, turned around and smiled at me and said, 'Grandpa, you lost,'" Rothenberg said. "I looked at him and said, ‘Jake, it’s not over until it’s over.’ And then of course, the Tyree catch and the touchdown catch to (Plaxico Burress). That was my favorite game."

Aside from the "helmet catch" game, Rapaport said Super Bowl 20 in New Orleans stands out for what they saw on Bourbon Street.

"A few days before the game, coming down the street, were a bunch of the Chicago Bears, led by (quarterback Jim) McMahon, signing the Super Bowl Shuffle," said Rapaport, 83, who lives in New York. "We said to ourselves, 'These guys can't win. They're having too much fun.' And lo and behold, they won."

Rapaport will miss out on extending his streak, but how many more consecutive games will the other five members of the two groups attend in the future? 

"It's a subject you need to have a couple of drinks to get into that," Schefler said. "But I think the concept was we'll keep going. Every year, we've said to each other, 'See you next year.'"

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