Tickets lure airman back
NEW LENOX -- Bears season ticket holder Mark Ott Sr. was lucky enough to win a lottery for a pair of Super Bowl tickets. He says he is even luckier that his son has come home from halfway across the world to go to the game with him.
"It's excellent to have him home," Ott said of his son, Mark Ott Jr. "I already had him take out the garbage."
(Courtesy Photo)
Mark Jr. arrived Thursday from Germany, where he is stationed at Ramstein Airbase and works in explosive ordinance disposal. The senior airman and graduate of Lincoln-Way High School served in Iraq from May to October and is scheduled to be sent to Afghanistan in June.
But this weekend he will be in Miami with his father.
"I told my friends back in Germany, if the Bears get to the Super Bowl, no matter what it costs, I'm going," he said.
As it happened, the cost was none too steep, thanks to his father's luck at the Super Bowl lottery. As a season ticket holder, Ott Sr. was eligible to enter the lottery.
The face value of the tickets is a bit more than $600 apiece, Mark Sr. said, and he was offered quite a bit more soon after he got his hands on them.
"Before I left the parking lot, I was offered $3,000. I said, 'Nope, nope, nope,'" Mark Sr. said.
"It was a real spooky environment," he said of the scene in the Soldier Field parking lot.
Still, there was the expense of a transatlantic flight, not to mention getting down to Miami on a weekend many hotels have put the squeeze on their customers.
"My friends think I'm crazy flying home just for that," Mark Jr. said.
And Mark Jr. won't be staying for long -- he is flying back to Germany the night after the game to rejoin his Air Force colleagues, a few of whom are Bears fans themselves.
"And they're jealous as hell," he said.
Contact Joe Hosey at (815) 729-6054 or e-mail him at jhosey@scn1.com