That year in New York there was a terrible snowstorm mid-week before the game was to take place in Pasadena. There were all sorts of reports on the news of cancelled flights and people sleeping in the airport, renting cars, taking trains, anything to get to the West coast.  Our plans were to leave on Thursday and return Monday.  When we arrived at the airport in NY, there was a flood of people, some looking to buy tickets from other travelers (remember this was pre 9/11, no names on the tickets), some waiting for cancellations.  We made our way through the throng and onto our plane on time and took off for sunny California.  We landed and picked up our rental, a white Lincoln Town Car.  Again, this was the 80′s, they didn’t rent compacts and mid-size cars, as a matter of fact, almost everyone at the event had the exact same car.  We then made our way to Palm Springs ( where I now live), where we met the others in our party that had come out ahead of us.  They were staying at the famous La Quinta hotel and had played the brand new Stadium Golf Course that day.  We went to Tony Roma’s for dinner, a restaurant that is still operating today.  We had made plans to stay at the vacation home of a friends parents, which we got to late at night and didn’t really know where we were.  In the morning we awoke to look out the sliding glass doors to a beautiful golf course.  After a nice round of golf we returned to the house to find the rest of our party…12 people in all…had arrived.  Sunday morning at 8 A.M. we all met at a central location where we took a “team” picture complete with 16 Super Bowl Tickets! (more…)

That day in the stadium, after the Martin play, my friends and I decided this was a turning point in the season and the next day….remember no computers or internet in 1986….I went to the local travel agent and purchased 6 round trip tickets to Los Angeles for Super Bowl 21 at $200 a piece.  This act of confidence would pay off in the end…but that is a story for another week.