Since this week’s theme is on our community’s favorite non-political, non-COVID topic: – our Buffalo Bills – we shine the spotlight on Ken Rogers who has been a Bills season-ticket holder for 23 years. To Ken, missing the ritual of going to games on Sunday afternoons during such a memorable season was among the biggest disappointments of 2020. While many of you know Ken as a Jewish community leader, management consultant, and/or as a participant in cause-related bicycling events, others would see Ken on Sunday afternoon in Section 111, Row 20, Seats 13 and 14. Like many, the season ticket investment started out as a bonding experience with his older son Matthew (in picture) who was his weekly game-buddy through 2003 when he went away to college. Matt still gets home for games at least once or twice a year and watching games on TV is a shared (but distant) experience.
Of course, there is a Jewish community connection to all of this, as the seats are in the area of the stadium that used to be populated by many members of the Westwood Country Club. There are still a few scattered around. Ken “inherited” the seats of good friend and former Buffalonian Bob Alexander when Bob moved to Austin Texas. These were the Alexander family season tickets dating back to the early 1960s when Bob’s late father Melvin Alexander purchased them.
One of Ken’s joys has been having cousins Ryan Gellman and Bruce Korotkin, and friends such as Paul Hurley, Howard Rosenhoch and Richard Tobe join him at games so that they can share the Bills in-stadium experience together. According to Ken, there really is nothing like it, especially as he has become friendly with the other season ticket holders all around him. By the way, for those of you wondering, Ken’s wife Kathy has not shared the experience (and has no interest in doing so) but supports his fandom.
Ken freely admits that with all of the other tsuris in our country and world, missing Bills games is “small potatoes.” But as we enter 2021 there is some optimism, and hope, and that is something we can all lean on together. With his ticket seniority Ken is one of the lucky ones who gets to go to the first playoff game. Look for him behind the visitors’ bench.
Go Bills!
