Krieger ready for the big game

MOUNT VERNON — Super Bowl LVIII will be played in Las Vegas, Nevada this Sunday night, but one of the San Francisco 49ers’ biggest fans will be watching from her hometown more than 1,500 miles away, in Mount Union, Iowa.

At 101 years old, Lugene ‘Lucky’ Krieger is as big a football fan as ever, and she has good reason to be. Krieger will be watching her grandson George Kittle attempt to win his first ever Super Bowl title.

“I can hardly wait,” Krieger said on Wednesday morning. “I've been talking to Jan, George's mother, and they’re leaving today. I could have gone, and I probably should have, but heck, I'm going to be sitting here in my chair and enjoy it.

Kittle, a former Iowa prep and Hawkeye football star has climbed the ranks to become one of the National Football League’s best tight ends, and his grandmother has been with him the whole way.

“I saw him in the eighth grade in Iowa City playing,” Krieger said. “He took the ball out of bounds and he was directing the team. I thought ‘wow, he’s going to be a good player.”

Krieger is no stranger to watching her family members succeed. Krieger and her late husband Viven ‘Bub’ Krieger had 10 daughters, and the family tree has branched out all over the sports world.

Krieger is also the grandmother of former Winfield-Mount Union and Iowa basketball star Jess Settles, former Iowa baseball standout Brad Carlson and former Mt. Pleasant and Hawkeye tight end and NFL player Henry Krieger-Coble, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg for one of Southeast Iowa’s most successful athletic families.

“We're just an athletic family,” Krieger said. “That's all I can tell you.”

As many readers know, Krieger was a basketball star in her own right. She was a standout for Richland High School, now Pekin, and played at the state tournament in 1938.

Perhaps, the beginning of the Krieger athletic dynasty kicked off when she was in eighth grade, getting her first taste of high school basketball.

“ I begged the coach to take me along in eighth grade, and he did,” Krieger recalled. “He put me in at the last part of the game.”

Despite her competitive background, Krieger says she is calm when she watches her grandson play on the big stage, or when she cheers on any of her other favorite teams, which of course includes the Iowa Hawkeyes.

“My mother got so nervous one time when we were playing Michigan,” Krieger said. “She was in a wheelchair, and at the very end, she wheeled out in the kitchen and didn't watch the end of it. I'm not that way. I can take it.”

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Although Krieger admits she does enjoy watching Michigan get beaten, she says she respects anyone who gets out and plays.

“I don’t have a least favorite team,” Krieger said. “I’m for anyone who loves to play ball.”

Krieger has watched two of Kittle’s NFL games live, one last season and one this season, both against the Arizona Cardinals. She earned a lot of media attention last year, even getting mic’ed up during one of the games.

“ You're taped up to the wire, and anything I said was going somewhere, and then they had a film on me the whole game,” Krieger said. “In the third quarter, I said 'Would you mind taking this off? I'm not saying anything of anyone’s concern.”

Krieger has been keeping busy in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, which is set to begin at 5:30 p.m., Central Time on Sunday night. On Wednesday, she was preparing to celebrate her older sister’s 103rd birthday.

Krieger celebrated her 100th birthday last season in San Francisco, where 49ers fans sung her ‘Happy Birthday’ during the team’s home game. She attended the team’s game in Arizona this fall, but says she’s been trying to stay out of the limelight this year.

“I don't want to say too much anymore, because people have heard enough about us,” Krieger said. “There are other players.”

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But the Krieger family will have its eyes squarely on one in particular. Kittle, who fell to the Kansas City Chiefs four years ago in Super Bowl LIV will get a chance at revenge, glory, and the first Lombardi Trophy for the family tree.

“I don't know what the day will bring,” Krieger said. “I don't yell a lot. I just kind of digest it and enjoy every minute of it.”