Josh Kramer was so mad that night in Arizona, he was ready to say or do something that might have had consequences. That’s when his parents reminded him that life had more to offer than the awful disappointment of seeing his Patriots lose the Super Bowl.
“It felt like I was going to get into a fight,” said Kramer, who was surrounded by celebrating New York Giants fans. “I thought there were a lot of bad calls that went against the Patriots.”
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He was 16 years old in the winter of 2008. A Gorham High student who played football for the Rams that fall. That he was at the Super Bowl was a small miracle or good fortune, depending on your perspective. He was a Make-A-Wish kid, beating back the leukemia that was diagnosed six years earlier.
I had caught up with him and his family at the NFL Experience two days before the big game. Their excitement was building along with all Patriots fans. The team was unbeaten. Winning the Super Bowl would crown the perfect season and they would be witnesses.
“I’m just amazed,” said Kramer that day. “I always wanted to see an NFL game and now my first is going to be the Super Bowl.”
He was in between meeting former and current players such as Je’Rod Cherry, a Patriots defensive back from 2001-04. Quarterback Brady Quinn, then a rookie with the Cleveland Browns, was nearby. Archie Manning, father of Peyton and Eli, gave him an autograph, not that Kramer was particularly thrilled with that.
Mentioning Eli Manning’s name can still provoke a negative reaction. He was sacked, said Kramer, referring to a couple times when he was in the grasp of Patriots collapsing the pocket, but the ref never blew his whistle.
“It seems like a long time ago. I can’t remember what I did yesterday sometimes.”
He was kidding. “It was a crazy feeling being in the stadium with all those people. We had great seats. You could feel like you were on the field.”
Josh and an older sister, Katie, and parents Jeff and Terry sat on the 15-yard line, seven rows up from the field.
That they were behind the Giants bench and in a section that seemed to be filled with Giants fans didn’t matter for much of the game. Not until the final minutes of the game, when Manning drove the Giants to the touchdown that gave them a 17-14 lead the Patriots couldn’t overcome.
“I remember how shocked we were,” said Terry Kramer. “I’m glad there’s going to be a do-over now. We’re digging out our T-shirts (from four years ago.)”
Jeff Kramer does remember how angry his son and daughter were in the stadium and how he and Terry put things in perspective for them. “For the perfect record to be broken right in front of us was obviously disappointing.”
That Josh is alive trumps everything else. He’s been free of cancer for more than five years. The weekly shots that went deep into thigh muscle for 30 weeks are in the past. Not forgotten, but not relived.
“We think how blessed we are,” said Terry. “The Make-A-Wish people were so gracious. We got to know quite a few of the other Make-A-Wish recipients who were there.”
The family stayed in Phoenix and was able to break away from the planned events. They got a car and drove out of the city to see the canyons and the cactus and the desert near the Superstition Mountains.
“At first, one rock looked like every other rock until I realized each one was different,” said Josh Kramer. “I loved it was hot, not humid.”
But, he said, he’s a Maine boy. He wouldn’t trade living in New England for the southwest.
He left the Gorham football program before he graduated. He had played center, the nerve center of the offensive line.
He graduated, and until he decides what do with the rest of his life, drives trucks for a paving company and an excavating company. He’s 20 years old. It’s been 10 years since his diagnosis.
Jeff and Terry Kramer celebrated the birth of their first grandchild, a son, to another daughter and her husband who is also an avid Patriots fan. Jeff and Terry will probably watch Sunday’s game while playing with Logan.
Josh Kramer will watch, too. Maybe with family, maybe with friends. Sure, the game is in a different city, and key players on this year’s team like Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez and Brandon Spikes and Rob Ninkovich weren’t with the Patriots in Arizona, but the memories will come back from when he sat on the 15-yard line.
He figures the Patriots have unfinished business. He’ll be OK.
Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:
ssolloway@pressherald.com
Twitter: SteveSolloway
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