Last Sunday, NDA librarian Katie Gelb and her husband Matt had the experience of a lifetime: a trip to the Super Bowl.

Matt Gelb won the highly-coveted tickets through a golf tournament, dubbed by some as the “Super Bowl of Golf.”

“When he called to tell us, we all thought he was joking. We definitely needed some proof before we started to believe him,” she said.

Now, with two tickets in hand, the Gelbs were off to Los Angeles, CA, the site of Super Bowl LVI.

They left on Friday morning to fly into San Diego, staying in the resort city of Coronado for the night.

“It was beautiful and relaxing and super vacation-y. We hung out at the pool and the beach; it was sunny and 90 degrees!” Mrs. Gelb said.

The next day, they drove north to Carlsbad, where they stayed two nights.

“It was nice to be just out of the city. It made getting to and from the game easy and smooth,” she explained.

Along the way, they met up with family and friends in the area, including Matt’s sister, who lives in the San Diego area, a friend that works with Adidas, and Matt’s high school best friend, who worked the VIP entrance at the Super Bowl, greeting stars like Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, Toby McGaguire and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, to name a few.

They even ran into professional golfer Harold Varner III at the game and talked with him for awhile.

On Sunday morning, the Gelbs set off for SoFi Stadium, the site of the game.

They spent time taking in the spectacle that is a Super Bowl, spending several hours checking out shops, promotional booths, pep rallies and all that goes into a game of this kind.

As Mrs. Gelb said, “The environment was over the top.  SoFi is like a resort—so fancy!”

Inside the stadium, there was a steady buzz of excitement in the air the whole time  accompanied by some sustained “Who Dey?” chants from the Bengals faithful (who seemed to outnumber the hometown Rams crowd).

Being Packer fans, the Gelbs didn’t feel very strongly either way about the game’s outcome.

With that being said, they connected the best with Bengals fans they met and would have enjoyed seeing them win their first Super Bowl.

“They seemed so much like Packer fans,” Mrs. Gelb recalled.

From their seats, they scanned the stadium for representatives of all 32 NFL teams, based on whose gear they were wearing. They found a fan of every team but three.

“It sort of struck us that [the Super Bowl is] something all fans appreciate,” said the librarian.

“We sat between 49ers fans and Ravens fans, and the family of a Rams front office guy sat in front of us.  Everyone was talkative, friendly and excited to share stories,” she continued.

On top of the play on the field, fans were also treated to a halftime show that featured iconic hip-hop stars Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige.

“The halftime show was super fun! The music brought us back to our college days,” she said.

“It’s pretty amazing how they make that all happen, so many people working together.” 

In the end, the game was a “bucket list-type experience” for them.

“We tried to pick favorite parts when we were on the plane ride home, and it was hard to come up with just one or two.”