FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. | Bikinis, board shorts and white-capped waves saturate Fort Lauderdale Beach on Florida's east coast.
The scene is nothing new for local inhabitants, but an uncommon sight this week has been catching the residents' eyes.
People are playing horseshoes on the beach. The Colts and their eager fan base are in town.
In the Super Bowl ticket lottery following Indianapolis' win over the New York Jets in the AFC championship game Jan. 24, the formula for chances in the drawing was: number of season tickets multiplied by number of years holding said tickets equals number of chances to be selected for Super Bowl ticket eligibility. In other words, the longer people have held season tickets, the more likely their loyalty would be rewarded.
For several Northwest Indiana residents or natives, that certainly was the case. The true measure of a Colts fan is if he or she can name the team's quarterback before Peyton Manning.
Hammond native Jim Blastick, Valparaiso residents Jack and Sandra Gump, Chesterton's De Ann and Rick Pruitt and Highland native Mike Malatestinic all can say it was Bears cast-off Jim Harbaugh.
That's because they've all had season tickets for more than 20 years. The Colts moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis in March 1984.
All of them are going to Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday in Miami's Sun Life Stadium.
None of them paid a cent of an upcharge for their $800 tickets.
Most of them will be sitting in the 400 level, while local fans who don't attend the game will pack Cafe Iguana Pines in nearby Pembroke Pines.
Blastick, who paid $2,300 for tickets through a broker in 2007 when the Colts beat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI in Miami, has been a Colts fan for life, idolizing Bert Jones, whom he later got to meet after randomly calling Jones at his wood-preserving business in Louisiana.
A friend who works security for the Tennessee Titans once pilfered a pair of game-worn Colts socks from the visitors' locker room in Tennessee. Blastick now superstitiously wears Dante Hughes' old socks to every game along with his authentic Manning jersey. The 40-year-old real estate employee in Chicago will wear them Sunday as he and a friend from Indianapolis watch the game in Miami.
"For me it's been 35 years (as a fan)," Blastick said. "It's kind of crazy how it engulfs you. ... When I'm 80 I can tell my grandkids I went to two Super Bowls."
The Gumps, 44th-year Valpo residents in their 60s, became interested in the Colts when they took their two daughters to a game 24 years ago and enjoyed the indoor football. They've held season tickets for 22 years.
"For a long time there were never any fans," Sandra Gump said. "We stuck with them through thick and thin and always enjoyed the games, win or lose.
"This is kind of maybe one of our Bucket List things."
Malatestinic, an Indianapolis resident and Bishop Noll grad, purchased season tickets in 1987 for clients of his crane-manufacturing business. Now he and his 76-year-old father, Bill, a Crown Point resident, have seats.
"We'll get there three or four hours before it starts," Mike Malatestinic said. "The pageantry will be great, but I want to watch the game, two teams playing to their potential in the biggest game of the year."
Of course not everyone from the area is rooting for the Colts. Saints players Pierre Thomas and Courtney Roby have family from the region in town for the game.
Katie Boncyk, who grew up in Dyer, is rooting against the Colts from nearby Plantation, Fla.
Diamond Donaldson, an Andrean grad who has lived in Atlanta since 1998, is in town pulling for the Saints because she's a big Reggie Bush fan.
"Even though I'm rooting for the Saints, I can proudly say that I'm from Indiana," said Donaldson, a Gary native. "I didn't want them to have to play each other."
Donaldson and friends arrive today, and a friend who knows a Cleveland Browns player is supposed to procure tickets for everyone.
