SUPER BOWL BOUND: Swansea teacher and son dance their way to Atlanta

Andrew Mello is jealous no more.

Until Wednesday morning, the second-grader at Somerset's North Elementary School was destined to watch Sunday's Super Bowl at home while his father, Barry Mello, an eight-grader history teacher at Case Junior High School in Swansea, attended the Patriots-Rams showdown in person.

Instead, Andrew and Barry will be traveling to Atlanta together, thanks to their modest dancing skills and NBC's "Today" show, which last week announced a send-us-your-video contest for two tickets to the Super Bowl. The Mellos, of Taunton, learned they had won while talking via FaceTime to "Today" anchor Hoda Katb, at about 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

"Today" had contacted Barry Mello on Tuesday night, letting him know he and Andrew, 8, were needed for the FaceTime hookup. They told Mello, 40, he was simply one of the finalists, so he said he expected to speak with a producer or an assistant. Instead, it was the face of "Today" on the other end of the call, with the NBC cameras recording.

"When I saw Hoda, I thought, 'This has got to be something big,'" Barry Mello said on Wednesday night.

Still, he said, he thought that something big might mean he and Andrew had made a final cut of perhaps a few contestants. Then Hoda dropped the bomb. The Mellos had won.

The video segment of the FaceTime call was aired during the 10 o'clock hour of Today. It showed a dad-son combination numbed by the big news. "Numb, that's a pretty good description," Barry said. "We were both kind of speechless."

The "Today" show contest was run in conjunction with Ticketmaster. Dorene Mello, Barry's wife and a mathematics teacher at North Elementary, had gotten the ball rolling. She routinely DVRs "Today" and she told her son about the contest. Andrew pressured his originally reluctant dad, who wound up choreographing most of the dance.

The dance videos had to be a minute or shorter. A 1996 graduate of Case High School, where he played football and baseball, Barry incorporated moves from the late 1980s and early 1990s pop culture into the routine — a lift from "Dirty Dancing," shuffle from MC Hammer, foot kick from Kid 'n Play. The final move, a handshake, was Andrew's idea. "It was from the Geico commercial where two squirrels cause an accident and give each other the handshake," Barry said.

Video production was not extensive, Barry said. One or two rehearsals, shoot the video and send it off to NBC.

Neither Mello could keep their contest victory a secret on Wednesday. Andrew played the video for his North Elementary classmates.

"Being a teacher, I had to show my students my two minutes of fame," Barry said. "They were amazed that such a horrible dancer could win. They all agreed it was my son's cuteness that won it."

As of late afternoon on Wednesday, Barry Mello said, he had not gotten extensive details on the free (except for taxes) trip. The Mellos will leave on Saturday and be in possession of two tickets. The location of the seats, the flight details and accommodations were not yet known.

For a while Wednesday morning, Barry was the owner of two Super Bowl tickets. His older brother Brian Mello, quarterback of Case's 1990 Super Bowl championship team, lives in the Atlanta area and had secured two tickets, for himself and Barry. "Andrew was a little upset when he found out I was going to go," Barry said.

Barry's original ticket on Wednesday morning suddenly became an extra ticket, one which quickly found a new owner — Brian's sister-in-law.

Andrew Mello, whose twin sister Olivia has zero interest in the Patriots or football, attended his first Patriots game during the 2018 preseason. Barry Mello said he gets to a Patriots game every other year or so.

Barry Mello now could, arguably, be classified as a chronically lucky guy. A few years ago at a golf tournament, he won a vacation to the Dominican Republic. "A friend told me today to let him know what numbers I'm playing," Mello said.

Email Greg Sullivan at gsullivan@heraldnews.com. Follow him @GregSullivanHN.