Bridget Collins and her husband were getting ready for a Super Bowl party on Jan. 31, 1999, when she realized she was in labor.
The hardcore Atlanta Falcons fan had expected to deliver her second son two weeks after the big game, but the little guy had other plans.
Bridget Collins delivered her son, Mason, 30 minutes after arriving at Gwinnett Medical Center. As the doctor was giving her post-labor care, he asked if it would be alright to turn on the game. Bridget Collins enthusiastically approved, and they saw the Falcons kick off against the Denver Broncos.
Hospital staff called Mason Collins the “first Falcons baby” and a family scrapbook remembers that year’s Super Bowl as “briefly interrupted by Mason’s birth,” Bridget Collins said. Collins’ family, full of Falcons fans, waited until the game was over to visit Bridget and her new son in the hospital.
The Falcons didn't win that Super Bowl. But now, 18 years later, Mason Collins is hoping for a different result.
Mason Collins grew up a Falcons fan, but was never really interested in football until he became the manager for Archer High School’s football team. Bridget Collins worried she had scared him and his brother off football when they were little with her enthusiastic football watching habits.
“At an early age, I kind of ruined that for them. I am very passionate and very emotional when I watch football, and I would scare them when they were younger,” Bridget Collins said. “I would jump up and scream when there was a big play, and the kids would come out of their rooms at night and say, ‘What’s wrong?’”
But now, Mason Collins is ready to cheer along with his mom. For his birthday on Jan. 31, he wore the Super Bowl T-shirt his grandfather got for the 1999 game. On Sunday, Bridget Collins and Mason Collins are going out to watch the game together.
“I am really excited because I feel like we were deprived of a Super Bowl about three or four years ago, when we had just gotten Matt Ryan,” Mason Collins said. “It’s been a long time waiting since we’ve had good seasons.”
Besides a win, Mason Collins said he wants to see a “fair game” against the New England Patriots, and he expects it to be close.
“More than anything, I’m hoping to see a fair game as far as the refs go, as far as the penalties go, and that it’s truly a game of who is the better team,” he said. “The only prediction I have is that it’s going to be a tight game.”
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