WARWICK — Well over 200 Patriots fans gathered off Airport Road on Monday, huddled for nearly two hours in a chill wind to catch a glimpse of their favorite team and watch its trademark red, white and blue jet disappear into the clouds on its way to Minneapolis and Super Bowl LII.
Ellie Wasser and her sister Anne Schwartz, both raised Cranston, were on the grass in front of the old, original T. F. Green Airport terminal. Ellie was wrapped in a red and blue Patriots scarf replete [...]
WARWICK — Well over 200 Patriots fans gathered off Airport Road on Monday, huddled for nearly two hours in a chill wind to catch a glimpse of their favorite team and watch its trademark red, white and blue jet disappear into the clouds on its way to Minneapolis and Super Bowl LII.
Ellie Wasser and her sister Anne Schwartz, both raised Cranston, were on the grass in front of the old, original T. F. Green Airport terminal. Ellie was wrapped in a red and blue Patriots scarf replete with blinking LED lights. It’s her husband’s lucky scarf, she explained, and she wore it in the hope some of its mojo would make it to Minneapolis with the team.
“Maybe we’ll get to see some really cute football players,” Wasser said, confessing wide receiver Danny Amendola was her flavor of the month. She said she remembered being in Harvard Stadium in 1970 watching the then-Boston Patriots. “I didn’t even like football,” she said.
But over the years, her children’s rabid fandom drew her in, she said, and so there she was, in the cold in Warwick, having a blast.
“If it was the president, I would not be here to see him,” she said, gazing toward the Patriots’ 737 parked about 100 yards away, “but this I will see.”
The crowd went wild at the arrival of the six-bus caravan that brought the team to the plane. Dressed in jackets and ties instead of numbered jerseys, the players looked more like a group of corporate managers heading to a convention. But Ron Gronkowski’s close-cropped head was unmistakable.
Kylie Russo, an 11th grader at Tollgate High School in Warwick, was wearing his 87 jersey.
“He’s just funny,” she said, explaining the choice. “We named our dog after him.”
She said she had finished her precalculus exam and got a ride to the airport. “We got out and went straight here,” she said.
Her 9th-grade brother, Brendan, who had finished his biology exam at Tollgate, was in a Brandin Cooks jersey.
“We went to the rally in 2012, when they played the Giants,” he said. The Pats lost that one, 21-17. He said he hoped for better this time.
Melissa Hall and her daughters, 4 and 3 years old, had been at Green to drop off the grandparents. She said she spotted the Patriots plane and had to go and see.
“We are here to experience something I don’t think they’ll see again in their lifetimes,” she said. “A pretty awesome team, something special.”
Here's our Facebook Live video from the sendoff rally at Gillette: