Superfan sees 500th NFL game at Lambeau
Brian Gushue knew for years that he wanted Lambeau to be his field of dreams.
Even as a longtime Californian, Brian had no doubt this football holy ground was the perfect place to complete his quest of attending 500 NFL games, most of them in just a 20-year span.
That goal was reached Monday night when Brian, along with three friends, saw the Green Bay Packers play the Detroit Lions.
ESPN has been following him around and did a story on Brian during its countdown to the game.
“Hey, I just saw you on TV,” said a fan who encountered Brian in the concourse as he made his way to the seats.
You get dizzy when Brian, 52, gets into the particulars of the achievement.
As a boy, he attended his first National Football League game in 1977, Browns against the Chargers in San Diego, where he still lives. In the 20 years that followed, he went to 33 more NFL games. OK, a modest beginning.
Then the crazy kicked in. From 1997 until now, Brian has been in the crowd at 466 games. That comes out to 22 games a season, all over the country. He has seen every NFL team in person at least 10 times. Monday was his 21st Packers game, his eighth time at Lambeau Field.
Of the 500 regular season and playoff games, 308 were in California. Brian cheered for his San Diego Chargers at home 176 times before they left town this season. He has seen the 49ers in San Francisco exactly 49 times. He was in Oakland the night Brett Favre played out of his mind right after losing his father.
Three times, Brian attended two NFL games in one day. Once he saw two on Sunday and another the next day. On a long weekend in 2006, he was in Oakland on a Saturday, San Francisco on a Sunday and all the way to Miami on a Monday, which happened to be Christmas.
“I did six weeks in a row where I did Sunday-Monday games this season,” he said.
He has traveled some 600,000 miles for all this football, but only to stadiums that have real grass. He’s a purist that way and won’t buy a seat in any park with artificial turf. So he has never seen teams like the Lions at home.
To add to the challenge of all this, Brian was born with cerebral palsy. He gets around with crutches most of the time, but uses his trusty 32-year-old wheelchair for stability at the games.
He worked as a newspaper copy editor for 22 years until the North County Times let him go in 2012. Brian, who also has arthritis, then went on Social Security disability.
He is single, but says he would love to find a girlfriend. He lives with his mother and siblings, and has burned through savings from his working years to pay for his NFL adventure, which he estimates at $150,000. “Fortunately, I’m very good at revolving debt,” he said.
As a boy, Brian came to love football because it’s a sport he could play with other neighborhood kids, often serving as quarterback for both teams. He throws a mean spiral.
His knowledge of the game, which is encyclopedic, matches his passion. At his 500-game pace, he sometimes attends alone, but much prefers going with friends or family.
“Brian loves sharing the experience of attending a football game as much as he loves the game itself. He’s a joy and a dear friend to be around, and it’s a thrill of a lifetime that I can be part of this with him tonight,” said Cathy Hendrie, who grew up in Appleton and has lived in San Diego more than 30 years. Monday was her first regular-season game ever at Lambeau. Also joining Brian on Monday were Cathy’s boyfriend, Jon Norton, and another friend, Michael Donnelly of Madison.
Their tickets to the game came with help from former Packers wide receiver James Lofton, who saw a TV news report about Brian in California and offered to make sure he could attend his 500th game at Lambeau.
Brian plans to continue attending NFL games, but at a slower pace. As a sly joke, game 501 (think jeans) will be at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco next Sunday.
“There’s more to life than football,” Brian said, and I almost believe he meant it.
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl