SAN FRANCISCO – “How many of you would like to bring 50 of your friends and family to the Super Bowl?” NFL Network host Rich Eisen asks the crowd in the courtyard of the Jones Restaurant on the Friday night before Super Bowl 50. He’s seated next to Steve Young and Tony Romo, and the three are set to break down the upcoming game between the Broncos and the Panthers in front of an invite-only group.
“I’m one of them,” a man in a blazer shouts out between bites of a slider. He’s wearing a pin that says “Marriott Rewards Winner.” There are 50 people donning the same pin. “They’re everywhere,” a woman nearby can be heard observing.
“I want to hear from all of you,” Eisen says. “But you don’t want to be the 51st person on that list. That’d be the worst.”
Who wouldn’t want that chance? The question Eisen poses doesn’t even make sense when asked out loud. It doesn’t seem possible. As longtime Bears great Brian Urlacher put it, “You can’t get 50 Super Bowl tickets.” But one man did just that, and the experience is one he and his family will be talking about for the rest of their lives.
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Meet Bill Craigle. Bill lives in Albany, New York, after moving from North Carolina in 2011 with his wife, Sharon, and two sons, Will, 26, and Matt, 22. Bill works in telecommunications, and like most people in 2016, he’s on Facebook. He saw a sweepstakes that offered the opportunity to take 50 people to Super Bowl 50, and all he had to do was basically like the post and give his name. He never bothered to tell his family he entered because, as he puts it, he “didn’t want to jinx it.”
“My luck for winning stuff hasn’t been so good,” Craigle says. “I really didn’t think I’d win, but I’ve always wanted to go to a Super Bowl, so I figured I’d give it a shot.”
Bill didn’t just win a gift card, or a flatscreen TV. He’s the winner of one of the coolest prizes a person can win. After Urlacher hand-delivers the tickets to the Craigles and announces the surprise to some family members in Illinois who are videochatting in, Bill has to decide which 50 people will make the trip. It’s not an easy process. There is a lot of discussion and consideration, but eventually the family creates a “Starters” and a “Backups” list. The Starters are the 50 who get the first crack at coming along. The Backups are there in case anyone can’t make it.
Everyone on the Starters list finds a way to fit it in their schedule. It’s the Super Bowl, and everything is paid for. Work can wait. One of the guests is a basketball player at Elon University in North Carolina, and he has to ask his coach if it’s okay to go to the Super Bowl. The coach, naturally, spins it back around and asks him “What do you think you should do?” The college student answers, “I think I should go!”
Marriott Rewards has never done a promotion this big, but when executives were sitting in a meeting with folks from the NFL discussing ways to make a splash for the “Golden Game,” someone speaks up and says “What if we let our winner bring 50 people to the Super Bowl?” There wasn’t a good reason not to do it (the test of any advertising campaign or marketing promotion), and now here Bill and his family are, being whisked off to San Francisco to be treated like celebrities for the entire weekend.
“It’s an endless weekend of unlimited indulgence,” Will says. “It’s really unbelievable.”
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The hotel they’re staying at passes around the video of Bill and his family winning the tickets, and the family is recognized by people at the front desk. Everywhere they go, there’s signs welcoming “Team Craigle,” and they’re treated to the party Friday night, a yacht tour Saturday, a tailgate brunch overlooking the bay on Sunday morning, a police escort to Levi’s Stadium, and a suite at the Super Bowl.
“My friend from Arizona called my wife and I the ‘King and Queen for the weekend,’ ” Craigle says. “And it really felt like that. We felt like royalty. All the little things were taken care of.”
On the dock awaiting the arrival of the boat Saturday evening, the guests sip champagne and watch the sunset at a marina just a few blocks from AT&T Park. A film crew from Good Morning America interviews the Craigle family and gets into Will’s story.
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While Will was in high school in Charlotte, he had trouble seeing the overhead projector, and later failed the vision portion of his driving test. He went to see an eye specialist, and they thought he just needed glasses, but after going through a full vision field test, they eventually opted to take him in for a scan. There they found a brain tumor. He saw the specialists at Duke University Hospital in Durham and stayed up in that area for repeated doctor’s visits. They delayed surgery just long enough so Will could run his last cross-country race of the season before removing half the tumor in the first surgery.
The experience was scary, to say the least, but the whole Craigle clan – as well as friends – bonded together to help Will as much as possible.
Bill sees this trip as a chance to pay it forward, and to show those close to him how much they mean to him. He even invites doctors who helped Will out to San Francisco along with his family and friends.
“It was great to be able to get everyone here who helped along the way,” Bill says. “This is awesome. Last June, Sharon’s mom and dad celebrated their 50th anniversary in Illinois, and not everyone was able to make it with schedules and travel. Even though everyone was invited, not everyone could come. But everyone made it here. And we’ll be talking about this every time we get together forever.”
The boat finally arrives (the original boat that was chartered had blown an engine, so another one had to be requested), and the group makes its way onto the yacht. Everyone is treated to another glass of champagne after climbing aboard, and hors d’oeuvres are passed around.
Two of the younger travelers peer out onto the dock and see someone making their way up the landing.
“That’s Tim Tebow,” he says. “He’s walking up now.”
Tebow surprises the group and gives a short speech welcoming them to the Super Bowl. Even he seems a bit confused by the prospect of the giveaway.
“50 people in a box for the Super Bowl?” Tebow says. “That’s kind of ridiculous.”
After handing over the mic, Tebow posts up and takes pictures with anyone who wants one. People are still buzzing. One guy comes over to Bill and grabs him by the arms with both hands. “Bill did you know?” he screams. And Bill just shakes his head.
***
At brunch on Sunday, the Craigles all put on specially made shirts with the number ’50’ on both sides and ‘Team Craigle’ on the back. They swap stories about everything they’ve done so far, from one guy (and his Villanova Final Four ring) being stopped and mistaken for Joe Namath, to the kids witnessing a high-speed chase in their Uber home. There’s been so much to experience, and they haven’t even made it to the game yet.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” Sharon says. “It’s been over the top. We have had so much excitement and fun times, and great, great memories together.”
The Craigle family does one more interview with Good Morning America and piles into a bus, where they’ll get a police escort to the game. There’s one more surprise – Troy Aikman pops into the suite to say hello and sign some autographs – and the game itself, where the longtime North Carolina residents are bummed about the result but have a memory that’ll last a lifetime.
“It’s really tough being home after a weekend like that,” Bill says. “None of us will ever forget it.”
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