Super Bowl Sneak 2003
Posted
on
on Tuesday, January 28, 2003
by Rob
Read about how Brian Schaefer managed to sneak into another Super Bowl game with Ryan Clements and Rob Meronek this past weekend.
| January 28, 2003 By Rob Meronek After this weekend's ASR event, Brian Schaefer, Ryan Clements, and I took a trip out to San Diego to watch the Tampa Bay Bucs win the Super Bowl. I'm amazed at how many skateboarders watch football these days. The bets were flying and I even made a $100 myself. We aren't jocks, but it's pretty fun when your own hometown team is in an event this big. We were loving it. Anyway, we rolled up to the stadium with only two tickets between the three of us. Just like the skeptical one from the last Super Bowl Brian snuck into, I was thinking "there's no way we're all getting in there" the whole time we were walking up. On top of that, I hurt both of my ankles the night before trying to ollie this EMB-looking thing in Long Beach on one already rolled ankle. With both ankles jacked, I was limping around like I had just crapped my pants. I walked for miles like that to get from the parking area to the stadium. While Ryan and I waited about 250 people deep in the line, Brian crept his way up to scope out the security, determined the procedures they were following, and tried to figure out how hard this would really be. There were two checkpoints to get to the ticket takers that allowed you into the stadium. Brian made his way all the way up to the front and found what he decided was probably the easiest pushover ticket taker - a nice older lady who turned out to be pretty friendly. He chatted and made friends with her while Ryan and I waited in line. As we got closer to the front of the line, we talked with Brian on the phone about our plan and how I would simply limp around them while Ryan and Brian took photos with the ticket taker since she was now a new friend of ours. It looked like it was working while I limped around Ryan and Brian as they kept the ticket taker distracted. I was about 20 feet away, limping to freedom, when I heard, "Excuse me Sir. Sir!" which I ignored. The ticket taker then sent another worker to come and get me. I acted surprised and headed back to the ticket booth. Brian's brother, Wayne, and a friend of his were there with us. We were busted there at the gate with a group of five people, but only four tickets. We all pointed the finger at each other and talked about how someone had lost a ticket.     After about a minute of that fake confusion we created, Brian finally just said, "Okay, all of you go in, I'm going back to the car to find the last ticket." So we all went in and were bummed because it didn't look like Brian was going to make it. Five minutes later, Ryan got a call from Brian saying he's in and needs to meet up with us - amazing. Turns out he had gone back to our same ticket taker friend and cried a sob story to her. In the middle of it, she complained about how she didn't feel so good or something and had to go get her supervisor. She asked him to wait there at the gate. As soon as she left, Brian just acted like he owned the place and continued to walk in. That was it. We watched the game mostly from sitting on the stairs in the stands since we didn't have three seats together. We got to see a crazy list of pop superstars like Celine Dion, No Doubt, Bon Jovi, The Dixie Chicks, Sting, Santana, and others. Yet another weekend ends where we're wondering if it's possible for us to have any more fun. After last week's Tampa Am and this, I'm ready for a little break from having way, way too much fun. It's finally back to normal for us. Rob |
