He was one of two members left from an elite fraternity, if you want to put a stamp on it.
Newark Star-Ledger and NJ.com columnist Jerry Izenberg won’t be making the trip to Super Bowl LIV Feb. 2 in Miami Gardens, (FL) to see the Kansas City Chiefs face the San Francisco 49ers.
Why is the person who writes about sports news the subject of a story? Because Izenberg was one of two remaining writers to have attended all 53 Super Bowls.
He explains his decision in a column in Sunday’s section:
Fifty-three years. That’s how long Part 2 of my pro football seasons always ended with the Super Bowl, a game whose name sounded like a breakfast cereal. Before that, from 1957 to 1966, there was a decade of NFL and AFL championship games, and I wrote about all of them, too — until now.
This year, the streak will end. I won’t be at Super Bowl 54 in Miami.
As I told Bill Vinovich, who will be the referee on Feb. 2, when the San Francisco 49ers meet the Kansas City Chiefs: “Flip the coin. You can start without me. It’s time to get off stage.”
But hold on: I’m old, not dead.
That last sentence is part of the brilliance that has made Izenberg one of the finest columnists for decades. A quip that grabs you in seven crisp words.
Another Jerry, Green of the Detroit News, will run his streak to 54 next Sunday. Izenberg writes of the group:
I was closest with Eddie Pope (Miami), Blackie Sherrod (Dallas), Will McDonough (Boston) Jerry Green (Detroit), Jack Murphy (San Diego) and Jim Murray (Los Angeles). Because of the geography that separated us, each Super Bowl was a reunion. So were the World Series and the Kentucky Derby. We shared a lot of press boxes, drank a lot of bad coffee out of Styrofoam cups and beat a lot of late deadlines.
But each year or so, by Super Bowl time, we had lost another one of us. Today, Jerry and I are the only ones left among daily newspaper columnists who have covered every Super Bowl. I telephone Jerry a lot just to make sure he’s OK, and I’m thrilled that now he’s the lone owner of the Super Club newspaper guys’ attendance streak.
Green was the subject of a profile last year in Crain’s Detroit. He was one of a group of writers in a 1969 photo with Joe Namath.
It was Jan. 10, 1969, and Super Bowl III was just 48 hours away. The scene was poolside at the now-vanished Galt Ocean Mile Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. The subject matter was brash and tanned New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, reclining in his swim trunks and sandals on a chaise lounge chair, surrounded by a few sportswriters. Namath is smiling in the photo, his head turned to acknowledge some fans. He was on the verge of truly becoming the flamboyant “Broadway Joe” and the night before had delivered his famous victory guarantee.
The 40-year-old Green is part of the scenery in what has become one of the most indelible images in not just Super Bowl lore, but sports history.
In 2018, Green described Izenberg:
“We share a survival instinct,” Green, who has written for the Detroit News for decades, said in a telephone interview. “He’s a survivor, I’m a survivor, and I appreciate the fact we’re both interested in each other continuing to cover (sports) because we represent an era that is long gone in American sports media. We covered national events and it would make some sort of reputation for ourselves.”