Matthew Jabaut attended Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans via The American Legion and USAA’s Salute to Service.
In late January, Department of Maine Legionnaire Matt Jabaut got a rather nice surprise when New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye paid him a surprise visit to present Maine’s Alternate National Executive Committeeman with two tickets to the Super Bowl via The American Legion and USAA’s Salute to Service program.
A longtime Patriots fan, Jabaut was able to spend a few hours with Maye, even tossing around the football. But that was just the start of Jabaut’s Super Bowl experience.
Jabaut, a member of Corey Edwin Garver Post 202 in Topsham and chairman of the Legion’s National Veterans Employment & Education Division, attended Super Bowl weekend in New Orleans with his fiancée, U.S. Navy veteran Caroline Yarmala.
In addition to attending the game, the pair also got to hang out in USAA’s Salute to Service Lounge, check out the Super Bowl Experience and go down on Caesars Stadium’s field prior to the game.
“It was definitely something that was on a bucket list for me, but I never thought I’d … do it like this. It was completely over the top,” Jabaut said. ““I think that the biggest thing, too, was to feel like this wasn’t like some kind of a drawing or whatever else. It was a recognition of the time I’ve put in and the other things like that in (The American Legion). And to be able to represent the organization as well as part of this was really meaningful to me.”
Jabaut and Yarmala flew out of Maine Friday morning and arrived in New Orleans that afternoon. Once on site, they were able to meet with and listen to NFL players who visited the USAA Salute to Service Lounge.
The pair also took in the Super Bowl Experience at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – home of the 2024 American Legion National Convention. The area featured interactive games, NFL player autographs, photos with the Super Bowl rings and the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and exclusive NFL Shop merchandise.
“It was a huge NFL theme park, basically, with all the craziness that’s there,” Jabaut said. “All kinds of goofy stuff, but also throwing footballs and catching footballs and doing all sorts of other fun stuff. There was a full indoor field where kids were playing flag football. It was a pretty unique experience.”
And then there was the actual game itself. Jabaut got to witness in person the magnitude of the game and what goes into it. “Everything is such a production. It’s unbelievable. The time, the coordination, all the stuff that’s going on,” he said. “To see that up front, to feel the energy and vibe in the stadium … you would never get from home watching. You might hear how loud the crowd is on TV, but you just don’t feel all the energy or the buzz that’s going around the stadium.
“To get to go down on the field and see … how much goes into it and all the moving parts, the coordination and the back and forth in and around the game, it’s just unbelievable.”
During the weekend, Jabaut also got a chance to reunite with Maye, whose strong rookie season included being chosen as an AFC replacement player for the Pro Bowl.
“He probably spent a good two hours with us in Maine. He talked a little bit about his grandfather’s service and things like that,” Jabaut said. “And then we got (to New Orleans), we had our kind of follow-up. I was really fortunate because I was the one (Salute to Service recipient) who had met my player before (the weekend). I was really fortunate to have that time before and to have the additional time to hang out, talk to him a little bit, give him some stuff so he remembered the Legion and what this whole experience was for him, too. That was really fun, and he was definitely very genuine and good about it. He was having fun with it as well.”
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