“He’s a Browns fan and he took me to the game with him ... and I went down talking about the Dawg Pound and came back singing ‘Who Dey,’” said Whitfield, of Kettering. “While we were at the game I said ‘Whoever wins this game will be my team for the rest of my life’ and here we are.”
Whitfield said she watches every game each season, attending as many as six to eight of them in person without season tickets.
“I have an album of ticket stubs including my very first game on the day I became a Bengals fan,” Whitfield said.
She does so without many others to root for the team with her.
“I’m almost the only Bengals fan in my immediate family on my side and my husband’s, but have never wavered no matter how hard other people have tried to get me to change,” Whitfield said. “I am currently trying to recruit my 4-year-old daughter Aubriana to my side so I could eventually have a buddy to watch games with and maybe eventually get season tickets.”
Watching games now is much less of a challenge than when she was in the U.S. Army between 1999 and 2017 and serving in Korea and Iraq.
“I had to get up in the middle of the night to watch games in real time when they were broadcast,” she said. “I watched Carson Palmer go down in the playoff game in the middle of a community center in Iraq and that was probably my worst time ever.”
Whitfield said when the Bengals beat the Kansas City Chiefs during the regular season she at the game and was in shock and then experienced “sheer joy.”
“When we beat them during the AFC Championship, I got down on my knees crying in my living room, then my daughter and I went on the porch and screamed, “the Bengals are going to the Super Bowl! Who Dey!’
“I received so many calls of congratulations you would have thought I was personally going, but those who know me know how much this means to me.”
She said that if someone had told her at the beginning of the season that Bengals were Super Bowl-bound, she likely would have replied, “Probably not, but we’ll see what happens.”
“I try not to get too excited every week but it’s pretty exciting. It’s been hard not to get excited and it’s been hard not to buy in, too,” she said. “I think they’ve kind of sold me at this point.”
The team making it this far makes her feel abundant joy for the city and for the team’s hard-working players, she said.
Whitfield will watch the Super Bowl from her living room with people that are willing to come cheer for the team with her because they know how much it means to her.
“I almost bought tickets, but couldn’t justify spending that much on tickets, airfare, and hotels, not to mention transportation and food,” she said. “But I vow to go to the parade if we win.”
A Bengals fan’s favorites
Name: Astrid Whitfield
Resides in: Kettering
Favorite Bengals moment before this season: “When Chad Johnson guaranteed the win against Kansas City (in 2003) and Kansas City was 9-and-0 and I woke up in the middle of the night in Korea and I woke up to watch that game and they won.”
Favorite Bengals moment this season: “I cried every game in the playoffs so far, but I think I cried the hardest when they won the first playoff game ... because it had been so long since we won a playoff game.”
Favorite Bengals player: “Kevin Huber, because he’s been the most consistent player for a long time. He’s, to me, always been our MVP almost every season because no matter what he tries to put us in good field position every time he punts.”
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