‘When football’s over, we keep our colors on’
Bengals superfan was decking out his Evergreen Park home long before it was cool
It’s the Year of the Tiger, but Keith Maciszek isn’t thinking about the lunar calendar.
Instead, the Evergreen Park resident is dreaming about his favorite team: the Cincinnati Bengals and their amazing season that led to winning the AFC championship game on Sunday and their first appearance in the Super Bowl since 1988.
Saying he’s a huge Bengals fan is a massive understatement. The exterior of his house features Bengals graphics and flags, and lights project big Bs on the light-colored brick. His truck is fully decked out with decals, and his basement is covered from floor to ceiling in orange and black.
His love for Cincinnati’s football team doesn’t stop there. Maciszek, who wears black and orange every day, is covered in Bengals-related tattoos. He said his first one in 2002 was a cat that was a cover-up for an old tattoo, and things just exploded from there.
He’s saved a spot by his elbow for a tattoo of the Lombardi trophy if the Bengals win the Super Bowl.
“I’ve had the space for so long. I know it’s going to hurt like there’s no tomorrow, but I’ve been waiting so long that I have to do it,” he said.
“Me and my family represent every day, all year long,” Maciszek said. “When football’s over, we keep our colors on. … Every year it’s something new. You’re never going to see me with the same vehicle twice. New players, new looks.”
On game days, his family blasts music associated with the team, including a rap song and a chant, as cars stream past the modest home along West 99th Street.
“Our house has been like this for years,” said his wife, Christine Maciszek. “Everyone beeps when they drive by. It’s crazy.”
She said her husband wanted to add more orange and black to the inside of their home. “I said you can do whatever you want in the basement, but I want the rest of the house.”
Christine Maciszek isn’t a Bengals fan, although of course she hopes they continue to win.
“I just support him. I live here — I don’t have a choice,” she joked. “I hope the Bengals win. They’ve been the underdogs for so long.”
Keith Maciszek admitted his emotions got the better of him at
times during Sunday’s championship game.
“I started crying. … It looked like we were losing,” he said. “Typical story of a Bengals fan: Right when you think you’ve got something good going, your heart gets ripped out.”
The game went into overtime, Kansas City had the ball first, then the Bengals intercepted a pass.
“I couldn’t even focus on the game,” he said. “I was watching it but I couldn’t really believe it was happening. … I started to get clammy. Makeup started to run on my face. The tears started. They kicked (the ball) and I watched it and it looked like slow motion.
“I was looking at it. It went through. And then it hit me. Everyone in my family started jumping up and screaming and they hugged me. There were tears, emotions. Usually we end the season in agony. … These kids fought their hearts out. I tried to keep it in but I couldn’t.”
He had to go outside to cool down.
“My tears just froze, literally. I started jamming with my radio and everyone was going by my block honking the horn, giving me hugs. … I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
“I was really excited for him because he’s just been wanting this forever,” Christine said. “Everyone was yelling — my kids (she and Keith have seven kids between them), their friends. Everybody was beeping like it was a parade. It was wild.”
Keith has high hopes for the Bengals in the Super Bowl.
“I think we’re already underdogs for that game. (The Los Angeles Rams) have home field advantage and the loud fans. But it seems like they’ve been doing pretty well with those odds. I think it will be a high-scoring game. These kids want it. Go Bengals!”
Maciszek already has beaten a few odds himself, winning a lot of money after the Bengals won the AFC championship when the team “had a 0% chance of making it to the playoffs,” he said. “But they regrouped and they overcame the odds.”
He placed his bets on the AFC championship and the Super Bowl in Las Vegas before the season started, back when the team’s starting quarterback’s status was in doubt because of a serious injury the year before.
“The clerk was trying to talk me out of betting my team,” Maciszek said. “He said ‘Sir, they never win. They have no chance. It’s never going to happen.’ I said I was still going to bet.”
When the team started its season against the Chicago Bears, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow played, and Maciszek, who didn’t have tickets, drove past Soldier Field on Lakeshore Drive for two hours playing music. He was delighted when the team came back and almost won the game.
By week seven, he said, “we were the No. 1 team in the AFC. That’s when the Vegas odds dropped … but I’m locked in odds that are so high . ... This is as close as I’ve ever been to having something to change my life.”
A Chicago native, Maciszek became a Bengals fan more than 20 years ago because of a chance invitation while on a work trip.
He works as a graphic artist doing wrap advertising for buses and trucks (including all of Chicago’s PACE buses) and had traveled to Cincinnati for a client visit.
“A gentleman said I should check out a football game because I was there for a weekend and he had a free ticket for me,” he said.
The team had just signed star wide receiver Chad Johnson, who would later be known as Chad Ocho Cinco.
“I got to see him doing his dancing routine,” Maciszek said. “The guy brought some laughter. I wasn’t a Chad Johnson fan until that day . ... He brought the fun to it.”
Maciszek also loves the Bengals because he can afford to take his family to games in Cincinnati — which he does several times a year — and the fans there are very friendly. “
Strangers are still hugging you but they still lost the game. They’re so used to losing,” he said. “People laugh at them and call them ‘the Bungles,’ but when you’re a fan like me you take it to the heart.”
And thanks to his tattoos, “I literally bleed black and orange.”
Plus, he loves to root for an underdog and the Bengals are certainly that. They’ve been to the Super Bowl twice before but never won.
Before Sunday’s championship game, Maciszek described the matchup between the Chiefs and the Bengals as “David against Goliath.”
“I got into it because I’ve always been the kind of guy who stuck up for an underdog,” he said. “Finally, this year all the curses are broken. All the bad karma is broken, and all the planets are aligning.
“Now it’s time for the underdog, and the underdog is playing great.”