Cos Cob’s Garnett has wish fulfilled at Super Bowl
Booth Garnett could not believe his eyes when one of his quarterback role models, Dan Orlovsky, was throwing him passes during a tour of ESPN’s headquarters last month.
But that was just the start of an unforgettable visit. Booth, 7, of the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, was soon surprised with tickets to Sunday’s Super Bowl. The tickets came courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, along with the NFL and ESPN.
And Booth, who was diagnosed with Leukemia in November 2021, was handed the tickets during NFL Live on Jan. 24.
This week, he’s been in Arizona with his family and will be at the game Sunday when the Philadelphia Eagles face the Kansas City Chiefs.
“It was the definition of a complete and total surprise from start to finish,” Booth’s mother Claire said from Arizona Friday. “He just stayed equally excited from that day forward about coming here to Arizona. So it has not disappointed in any way, shape or form.”
It’s the ultimate prize for a football fanatic.
Booth began treatment soon after his diagnosis 15 months ago and spent many hours in hospital rooms. And it was his love of football — which he inherited from his parents, Claire and Steve — that has helped him cope.
“He really started paying attention to the stats and players and all that when he was first diagnosed,” Claire said. “We had nothing but downtime sitting in a hospital. It sort of just like, as the weeks went on, fine-tuning it, he just became a sponge.”
With all the time on his hands, Booth got through his school worksheets quickly and filled the hours with all things football.
“Obviously, we were in the hospital for huge chunks of times when the NFL season was not happening and the college football season was not happening,” Claire said. “So during those times we watched a lot of historic games from old Super Bowls, footage from games of the past to highlight videos.”
Following his diagnosis, the Garnett family met with a Make-A-Wish representative and told them Booth’s wish would be to attend a Super Bowl.
Even though Make-A-Wish had already set
Booth up with tickets to Super Bowl LVII this year, the organization decided to surprise him even more with a visit to ESPN’s campus in Bristol. Booth was simply told that Make-AWish had set up a tour for him to see ESPN headquarters,
That alone excited Booth, but he had no idea what was in store for him.
“When I told Booth he was going on a field trip to ESPN, he was shocked. I basically told him the night before,” Claire said. “So he was thrilled just to go on to the ESPN campus and look into their original SportsCenter studio and go into the new SportsCenter studio, go to their control room, and meet a bunch of the announcers and the TV personalities he watches at home on NFL Live.”
“He threw the football around with with Dan (Orlovsky) and all those guys so that was all he thought was happening, then they let him know that he was going to be on TV with them. So that was the first surprise he was thrilled about.”
Orlovsky, a former star quarterback at Shelton High and UConn, had a long NFL career before becoming one of the faces of ESPN’s football coverage.
“Booth wants to be a quarterback so QBs hold the highest place in his little sports field heart. And yes, he loves meeting anybody from our state,” she said. “Because again, for being a little kid who has a dream of playing in the NFL, he’s like, ‘OK, guys from Connecticut do make it to the NFL’
“...I think it’s awesome to have sort of like a home state hero that you actually meet in real life and who did the exact thing that you’ve dreamed of doing.”
He went from throwing the ball around with Orlovsky to discussing NFL quarterbacks with the whole NFL Live crew on TV. Booth held his own, and looked spiffy while doing it, and the crew joked he was coming for Orlovsky’s gig.
Booth was on set, standing in front of a graphic that said “BEST CHANCE TO GO TO SUPER BOWL” with the logos of the Eagles, Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals and San Francisco 49ers and the prospective percentage of each team’s chance to reach the big game.
NFL Live host Laura Rutledge asked Booth who he picked to win the Super Bowl. “Chiefs, probably ... Patrick Mahomes will be OK,” he said.
Soon, Booth was asked to turn around and look at the board as the graphic changed. Booth’s picture appeared with “100%” next to his name.
Rutledge told him he would be going to Super Bowl LVII.
“He was then presented with the tickets to the Super Bowl, he was so shocked about it,” Claire said.. “It was a sort of like an unfolding surprise as the day went on. So he was over the moon and it was about an hour, 15 minute drive from our house to the ESPN campus and he did not stop talking the whole ride home about everything. And literally, like could barely fall asleep that night,”
The only thing that would have made this Super Bowl sweeter for Booth was if his team, the New York Giants, were playing.
“He was fortunate enough to go to a Giants game on a freezing, freezing day,” Claire said. “It was so cold and windy, I told my husband ‘You won’t be able to last the whole time’ And of course, they stayed the whole time. And Booth was like, ‘You think I would have ever come home early? I don’t care how cold we are, they would have to drag me out of there.’ “
The Giants might not be in the Super Bowl, but their presence was felt at the NFL Honors in Phoenix. Coach Brian Daboll won Coach of the Year award.
“Being a family who loves the Giants, we were very, very happy and excited about that, that ‘our coach’ was Coach of the Year,” Claire said.
Booth and Steve got to attend the NFL Honors Thursday night and see “their coach” accept the award in person. Over the course of the night, Booth met many NFL players that he’s looked up to, including a particular running back that Booth has idolized as a Giants fan.
“They got all dressed up and Booth took a record amount of selfies with all his favorite people and there’s a very funny video of Booth meeting Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants, another person who he is obsessed with, and getting a selfie with him,” Claire said.
On Friday, Booth and the Garnetts took a tour of State Farm Stadium, where Kansas City and Philadelphia will play. As a quarterback lover, Booth was most excited to see the Chiefs’ locker room where Patrick Mahomes will prepare for the game.
“One of his quarterback idols is Patrick Mahomes, so he is thrilled that he gets to see Patrick Mahomes throw a football live and in person. That alone is going to be amazing for him,” Claire said. “...It worked out perfectly in his sweet little brain that he gets to see Patrick. If he’s not going to see the Giants in the Super Bowl, the next best thing was to see Patrick Mahomes.”
That’s why Booth is cheering for the Chiefs Sunday.
But the magnitude of the event has been sinking in for Booth. Seeing the stadium Friday, his excitement hit a “fever pitch,” his mother said.
“We call it ‘sports Disneyland.’ For a kid who only cares about football, it’s like 10 times better and everything exceeds expectations,” Claire said. “The size of everything is really cool. The stadium is so huge. Every player seems taller than they seem on TV and all that sort of stuff. So it’s really cool to watch it through his eyes. As he always reminds us, ‘you know, one day you’ll be here watching me play football.’”