Minutes after Bengals kicker Evan McPherson booted the game-winning discipline objective towards the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, incomes the crew the AFC Championship and its first journey to the Tremendous Bowl in 34 years, Karen Roseman-Harris’ cellphone started ringing off the hook.
Cellphone calls and textual content messages have been pouring in from excited Bengals followers eager to learn about journey preparations for the Tremendous Bowl. For greater than 35 years, Roseman-Harris, of Forest Park, or “Ms. Okay” to her associates, has been organizing street journeys to Bengals video games.
She and a buddy, Marsha Watts, began again within the mid-Eighties by taking a busload of rabid Bengals followers to Cleveland yearly for the Battle of Ohio. Over time, one bus journey grew to become two, then three, and now Roseman-Harris is organizing as many as 4 out-of-town excursions every year to Bengals video games.
She estimates she’s put collectively journeys to greater than 100 Bengals away video games, together with journeys to London, Buffalo, Inexperienced Bay, Dallas, Las Vegas and Arizona to call just some. She even sat subsequent to and chatted with Nancy Brown, the spouse of Bengals proprietor Mike Brown, on a bus journey to Buffalo in 2015.
“Inside three hours of the AFC Championship sport, I acquired over 95 cellphone calls and texts asking for details about the Tremendous Bowl,” mentioned Roseman-Harris, proprietor of Journey by Karen. “I have been working nonstop ever since.”
And that is not hyperbole. Roseman-Harris was going out of city for an all-girls trip in Cancun a number of days after the AFC Championship sport, however admits she spent extra time reserving journeys to the Tremendous Bowl than she did on the seaside. In truth, as of Thursday, Roseman-Harris nonetheless hadn’t secured her personal tickets to the massive sport in Los Angeles.
“I simply wish to get our followers on the market,” she mentioned. “I have been sleeping a median of 4 hours an evening. I wish to get as many to the Tremendous Bowl as I can.”
Organizing the street journeys is a labor of affection, mentioned her daughter-in-law Susan Janelle Roseman.
“She takes folks to the video games as a result of she is worked up concerning the crew, and he or she needs folks to share within the pleasure,” Susan Roseman mentioned. “There are occasions when somebody won’t have the cash to go and he or she remains to be attempting to ensure they’ve a method.”
Generally which means digging in her personal pocket to make it occur. Roseman-Harris organized a bus journey to Nashville for the Bengals’ AFC Divisional sport towards the top-seeded Tennessee Titans. The 40 folks on board the bus every needed to pay $299 for the trip, sport tickets and lodging. However after the Bengals upset win, their first-ever on the street within the playoffs, one thing came to visit her.
“I used to be simply so excited. I do not know what came to visit me,” Roseman-Harris recalled. “I stood up on the entrance of the bus and I advised all people that this journey was one me. If they’d already paid, they’d get a full refund and in the event that they nonetheless had an excellent stability, contemplate it settled.”
Do the mathematics; that is nearly $12,000. And one heck of a victory celebration.
I’ve had the pleasure of touring with Ms. Okay a bunch of instances through the years. The Bengals-Browns journeys have been an annual affair for me and my spouse. We have additionally traveled along with her to London and Inexperienced Bay and I’ve completely loved it every time.
You are not simply getting a trip whenever you journey with Ms. Okay. It is extra like a celebration on wheels (or wings in the event you go by air). She offers an assortment of meals and drinks and there are reward raffles, Bengals trivia (which I nearly at all times win) and loads of music and enjoyable. Her daughter-in-law described it like “displaying up at a tailgate get together with out having to convey a dish.”
Then there are the cheers. Earlier than departing to every vacation spot, Ms. Okay stands in entrance of everybody to show them cheers the group will sing wn the Bengals win – and Ms. Okay at all times expects the Bengals to win. These are time-honored tunes handed all the way down to her from her grandmother.
One goes like this (sung to the tune of the African American religious “Wade within the Water”):
“Go to the bathe, go to the bathe, Rams,
Go to the bathe, the Bengals achieved turned on the water.”
A second cheer feels like this:
“Awww shoot! It is getting sizzling in right here. It have to be a Bengal within the environment”
As many people who steadily journey along with her say, “Ain’t no get together like a Ms. Okay get together, ‘trigger a Ms. Okay get together do not cease!”
“They imply the world to me,” Roseman-Harris mentioned of the journeys.
Or maybe she was referring to the Bengals. Roseman-Harris considers herself the Bengals’ No. 1 fan, a love affair that began as a tomboy watching Bengals video games along with her mother and father, John and Agnes, at their dwelling in Avondale. She even as soon as tried out to be a Ben-Gals cheerleader in her 20s, however bowed out earlier than the ultimate alternatives.
“I am undecided why I by no means adopted by means of. I suppose I bought chilly ft,” she mentioned.
Roseman-Harris developed a love for journey from her mom, who was a part of a girls’s touring membership that solely took journeys by bus. She mentioned her first journey along with her mom’s group was to the Million Girls March.
To honor her mother-in-law, Susan Roseman wrote a letter to the Bengals previous to the AFC Championship sport requesting they provide her one of many sport balls ought to the crew win. Along with reserving journeys, Roseman-Harris is co-owner of Gametime Final Sports activities Bar & Grill in Mt. Wholesome. Susan Roseman advised the Bengals she felt it was essential for the crew to acknowledge Black-owned institutions and be deliberately inclusive.
The Bengals responded by sending head coach Zac Taylor to Gametime with a sport ball instantly after the crew returned from Kansas Metropolis.
“We bought the primary out of 5 sport balls they have been freely giving for that sport,” Susan Roseman mentioned. “It was surreal after we bought the cellphone name that Zac was coming straight from Kansas to the bar. It made us really feel part of the crew, the power and the motion that’s infecting the whole metropolis and far of the nation.”
And Taylor did not simply ship the ball and depart. He caught round to take photos with each patron who needed one.
“He was so sleek, approachable and attentive to the fanbase who was within the bar that night,” she mentioned. “You write a letter and also you hope that it issues to somebody and that they’re even going to learn it. The Bengals thought of my letter and acted on it. It made us really feel related and made us wish to proceed to be supportive of the franchise.”
At 65 years outdated, one may surprise how lengthy Ms. Okay intends to maintain organizing Bengals journeys.
“I simply get pleasure from sharing the love with the followers who simply wish to be there supporting the Bengals and rooting them on to wins,” she mentioned. “I wish to do that so long as my wheels hold rolling.”
And after they will not anymore, Susan Roseman mentioned Ms. Okay is already grooming the subsequent technology to take the wheel, so she will simply sit again and trip along with her husband Cecil.
As for Sunday’s large sport, Roseman-Harris nonetheless hopes to make it inside SoFi Stadium to see the sport. But when not, she’ll be subsequent to different Bengals followers she helped get out to L.A. at a restaurant in the Hilton Los Angeles Airport lodge watching the sport on 50 TV screens. And naturally, she expects the Bengals to win.
“By no means doubted it for a minute,” she mentioned. “The Bengals are going to win 34-31, and after they do, I will be there to say I advised you so.”
Opinion and Engagement Editor Kevin S. Aldridge might be reached at kaldridge@enquirer.com. Twitter: @kevaldrid.
