Gilroy
– The next time you have a chance to enter a contest but don’t
because you think you won’t win, you may be passing up a super
opportunity.
Just ask Jan and Ray Avila.
Gilroy – The next time you have a chance to enter a contest but don’t because you think you won’t win, you may be passing up a super opportunity.
Just ask Jan and Ray Avila.
The Gilroy couple left early this morning to Miami to watch the Indianapolis Colts battle the Chicago Bears Sunday in arguably America’s grandest sports extravaganza – thanks to a contest sponsored by the Oakland Raiders and Mountain Mike’s Pizza.
“When the guy from KSJO – the radio station for the Raiders – called he asked if we were Raiders’ fans,” Jan said. “I had to tell him, ‘um, no, we’re 49ers’ fans,’ but he was a good sport.”
Indeed, if contest playing were a sport, Jan would likely be playing in her own Super Bowl. She has won a trip to Hawaii and a trip to Mexico by entering contests.
“If I go online and see a link to a contest, I’ll click on it and enter. But I am selective – I won’t enter a chance to win a Hummer when I can’t even afford the gas to put in it.”
One evening in October Jan went online to see if Mountain Mike’s in Gilroy was offering any coupons. That’s when she saw the contest to win a trip to “Pro Football’s Big Game.” She was going to Mountain Mike’s anyway, so she printed out the entry coupons and dropped them off when she picked up her pizza.
A month later, while Jan was home sick, she got a voicemail that told her she had won the statewide contest.
“I didn’t listen to it at first because I was sick, and then I thought it was a crank call,” Jan said. “But then you just start thinking, ‘oh my god, I won!'”
This will probably be the first and the last time the Avilas will attend the Super Bowl, with the price of tickets being what they are, Jan said.
She poked around on eBay just to see what tickets to the big show were going for and spotted some offered for $7,000. Each.
But they plan on soaking in every feverish moment of the experience while they’re their, Jan said.
“We’re going to have such a good time, I almost don’t mind that we have to watch Prince at halftime,” she joked.
Their seats are in the lower section right behind the east goal posts.
With all the noise and pageantry and the two best teams in the NFL knocking heads, it will be a slice of marital bliss, right?
Well … there is that dicey point of Jan being a Colts fan while Ray is pulling for the Bears. Now that’s a contest to watch.
