Reporter’s Notebook: Bengals’ Super Bowl return brings back memories of hometown
Brett Dunlap
Brett Dunlap
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It was Sunday, Jan. 22, 1989.
I was 17 years old and a junior in high school.
As my friends and family gathered in different spots to watch Super Bowl XXIII between the Cincinnati Bengals and the San Francisco 49ers, I drew the short straw and had to work that evening at Bob & Carl's, a grocery store in my hometown of Wilmington, Ohio, about 50 miles northeast of Cincinnati.
It was dead that evening as most people were home wrapped up in the game. We got the occasional customer looking for groceries and people looking for some last-minute snacks.
Occasionally I heard updates on the game (this was a time before the internet and iPhones). It appeared the Bengals might win but with two touchdowns in the final quarter, the 49ers won 20-16 over the Bengals.
I took solace in the fact that they made it to the Super Bowl that year. How long could it possibly be before they returned?
…33 years later…
I am 50 years old now, have been working in Parkersburg for 27 years and I am married with two kids. On Sunday, Jan. 30, I stood in the newsroom and watched Evan McPherson on TV kick the field goal to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs and send the Bengals back to the Super Bowl.
My Facebook feed exploded with cheers and excitement from many back in Wilmington.
The Bengals and my hometown have been linked for many years. Throughout the 1970s and 80s and up until the early 1990s, the Bengals held summer training camp at Wilmington College, which plays Marietta College in sports.
Every summer, the Bengals would come to town and practice, run drills and determine who would be on the roster the following season. The town would come out to watch scrimmages - I went to a couple - and get to interact with the players. I still remember when the team debuted the striped helmets in the early 1980s.
Over the last couple of weeks, as the Bengals kept inching closer and closer to a Super Bowl return, people from back home started posting memories and pictures of the Bengals in town, highlighting players, autographs and people they knew being in the middle of all the excitement.
A guy I graduated high school with posted a picture of him and Boomer Esiason in the late 1980s. The sister of one of my oldest friends talked about being a high school cheerleader and going out to the scrimmages to cheer. It didn't hurt that our high school's colors were orange and black. She also talked about her dad having season tickets, their family going to games at Riverfront Stadium in the cold weather and how her dad went to the 1982 Bengals Super Bowl where the Bengals first lost to the 1949ers in the big game.
One summer there were T-shirts and buttons printed with a drawing of a pig with Bengal stripes and holding a football that said "Wilmington Is Hog Wild About the Bengals," tying into the town being a farming community.
People talked about seeing Ken Anderson, Anthony Munoz, Cris Collinsworth and others around town.
Myself, I was working at Bob & Carl's one day and saw Coach Sam Wyche coming out of the Revco next door. A guy walking by yelled out to him, "Coach Wyche! Are the Bengals going to the Super Bowl this year?" Wyche looked right at him and said confidently, "Yes sir!"
In 1993 while I was interning at the Wilmington News-Journal, I interviewed Jim Breech, the kicker. This was around the time Doug Pelfrey was coming up and had a good shot at taking over the kicker's position.
Breech had been with the team since the early '80s and knew his time was probably coming to a close, but he was gracious about it. He said Pelfrey was a good kicker and really talked up what the younger man could do. If it was his time to leave, he would do so as he felt he had a good run. I recently read an interview where Breech talked about how impressed he was with McPherson and I could still see that graciousness I encountered when I talked to him all those years ago.
Many recalled family members who are no longer here who would have been thrilled with this Super Bowl return, people who stuck with the Bengals through many of the lean years when the name "Bungals" got tossed around a lot. My parents both rooted for the Bengals.
As a kid, my folks got me a No. 14 jersey when Anderson was the quarterback. I still have a small coin bank that resembles the original helmet that said "Bengals" on the side. I also got a football used in the training camp that one of the players gave a relative of mine.
On the night the Bengals beat the Chiefs, I found a Bengals cap that belonged to my dad (he passed away in 2013) and I have been wearing it since. It was my father, in a true Cincinnati tradition, who first introduced me to Skyline Chili which I still enjoy to this day (even thought I now have to buy it frozen from Kroger.)
A woman I graduated high school with talked about how it was her father who made her a lifelong Bengals fan and how she wished he could be here now to see them return to the Super Bowl. Another classmate posted pictures and videos of her son in a Bengals jersey and talked about how she wished he was here to see this moment as he died in 2014 at the age of 19.
A woman posted a picture of Pelfrey and her kids on Facebook. I responded and told her about interviewing Breech at that time. She then told me how her youngest son in the picture had a baby Bengals jacket signed by Coach Dave Shula and some of the players when they were in Wilmington and how she now keeps that coat in a shadow box as her son passed away a couple of years ago. It is something she continues to treasure for many reasons.
"It is amazing how we connect our memories to a time and place, in this case Bengals football," I wrote to her. "They being at Wilmington College and interacting with the people in town created special family memories for so many." She agreed.
My mother, who watches the Bengals regardless of how well they are doing, told me she was so nervous about the game against the Chiefs. She had it on, but she was knitting and only listening to it. Only when it was over, could she believe it happened and take it all in.
One night this past week my daughter was having trouble sleeping and I showed her a video posted by the Cincinnati Enquirer showing how different fans all over reacted to the Bengals returning to the Super Bowl. I told her that many people from Wilmington were probably reacting the same way. She is no stranger to football fans as our family regularly roots for the Ohio State Buckeyes (Columbus was just under 70 miles from Wilmington). I told her how the Bengals came to town every summer I was growing up and that connection to the team was special for many people in my hometown, including her grandma. I told her how her grandpa would have been excited about it as well. She took it all in and was caught up in the memories I was sharing.
For many, this game is a long time coming as they feel they have something to truly cheer about.
For others, it is not about the players, past victories or amazing plays, it is a reminder of those who are not here to share it. Fathers, sons, mothers, daughters and dear friends who would have cheered louder than anyone and who are being missed a little bit more now and how it was up to those left to cheer a little bit more in their absence.
I'm looking forward to watching the game this Sunday, wearing my dad's hat and rooting for Cincinnati with my family just like many from Wilmington and elsewhere will be doing.
Just for added luck, I will try to avoid the grocery store that day.
Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com