By Rodney Haas 

605 Sports 

MINNEAPOLIS — Freddie Obermeier remembers his first Minnesota Vikings game like it was yesterday. 

It was a cool crisp October Sunday in 1972 and the Vikings were hosting the St. Louis Cardinals (now Arizona Cardinals) at old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota. 

Obermeier was a junior in high school and had helped his uncle plant trees on some acreage near Stillwater, Minnesota. As a thanks for helping him, his uncle treated him to the Vikings game. 

“I just fell in love with it,” said Obermeier of how he became a Viking fan. “It was big time walking through that tunnel. We were on the second deck of left field in old Met Stadium. We would walk through the little tunnel and see that bright green field. It looked so awesome to me.” 

On that fall afternoon, Obermeier witnessed Hall of Fame Viking coach Bud Grant roam the sidelines and Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton throw for 124 yards on 15 of 23 passing attempts including a 4-yard touchdown pass to Gene Washington to give the Vikings a 14-12 lead in the fourth quarter. 

However, for Obermeier, he would leave Met Stadium in disappointment in a 19-17 loss.  

“The first Viking game I got to see was a loss,” Obermeier said. “Fred Cox kicked what could’ve been the game-winning field goal and it bounced out in the left up right.” 

By 1972, Grant was in his sixth season as the Vikings head coach and Minnesota was three years removed from falling to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl IV. 

For Obermeier and his Uncle, who had season tickets, the fun was just beginning, as the Vikings would embark on a stretch in which Minnesota would reach the Super Bowl in three of the next four years. 

“I got to see the ‘Hail Mary Game’ in 1975 against the Dallas Cowboys. I got to go to the NFC Championship in 1976 when the Vikings beat the (Los Angeles) Rams. I got to see some big games early on in my life and that really cemented it for me on how cool that was,” he said. 

When the Vikings moved from Metropolitan Stadium to the Metrodome in 1982, Obermeier was there, but this time with season tickets of his own. Since then, he has been a Viking season ticket holder for the past 42 years. 

“It was that game. When he took us to that game. I just thought it was cool. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. That was big time,” Obermeier said, recalling the experience of his first game 52 years ago. “I didn’t have much football in my life. In high school I was a student manager my freshman year. I still didn’t have exposure to college football. He took me to that first game in the fall of ’72 and I just fell in love with it.” 

Obermeier is the first to admit he doesn’t have much of an athletic ability, nevertheless from that game in 1972 and on, he has found some way to be involved in sports. Over the years, Obermeier has been a fixture in the Clark sporting community, from being the long time manager of the Clark Traders, to being involved with the American Legion and VFW teener baseball programs, to keeping the score for the Clark/Willow Lake basketball teams in the winter.

It is through the relationships he’s forged through sports that has allowed him to continue a new tradition — one that started when his uncle took him to that game in 1972 — taking kids from the Clark area to Vikings games.  

“Absolutely. That’s the best part of it for me,” Obermeier said of seeing the look and the expression on the kids’ faces when they see U.S. Bank Stadium for the first time. 

For some in other parts of the country, the idea of going to a NFL football game can be taken for granted like attending a Jackrabbit or Coyote football game in Brookings or Vermillion.

“It’s not a half-hour drive for a lot of kids,” Obermeier said about the nearly four-hour drive from Clark to Minneapolis. “They don’t get to do it very often. I’ve taken several over the years where it’s their first time and some it’s their only time.”

Obermeier says he’s taken hundreds of kids over the years between both to the Metrodome and U.S. Bank Stadium, including 23 different groups last year and so far this year, he’s taken 12 different people this year.

“The action is right in front of you,” he said of the location of his seats. “You just can’t get much closer. It’s pretty fantastic.” 

Freddie Obermeier manages his final game for the Clark Traders during an amateur baseball district playoff game July, 2022 in Lake Norden. (Photo by Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)
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Just as Obermeier was in awe of Met Stadium and the green grass field 50 years ago, Cooper Pommer was in the same state of awe of just how big the outside of U.S. Bank Stadium is, and the green field, as he and some buddies made their way to Obermeier's seats located on the visitor’s side at the 20-yard-line, eight rows from the field.  

It was the Vikings home opener against the defending NFC champions San Francisco 49ers and Pommer, a junior at Willow Lake High School, was asked to join some of his buddies for the game.  

“It was amazing. It was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was awesome,” said Pommer, who bleeds Packer green more than Viking purple. “It was my first NFL game and it was a pretty cool atmosphere. It was a journey. I didn’t really like being around all those Viking fans.” 

Just as Obermeier watched Grant roaming the sidelines all those years ago, Pommer watched current Viking coach Kevin O’Connell do the same while watching Sam Darnold throw for 268 yards on 17 of 26 passing attempts and two touchdowns in a 23-17 Minnesota win.  

“It was so much fun to watch those NFL players do what they do,” said Pommer, who had Obermeier as one of his baseball coaches. “It was way bigger than I thought. Even the outside of the stadium. I was like, ‘Holy Cow.’ ”

Obermeier says the drive back to Clark typically is pretty quiet, but as soon they arrive back to town, it doesn’t take long for him to hear about the reactions from the kids, especially now that Obermeier is working on the second-generation of kids he’s taken to Vikings games. 

“They (the kids) tell me that (their dad told them), ‘Freddie took me when I was in high school.’ Then I hear from the dads, they will text me or call me or I’ll talk to them at a ballgame. ‘I remember when you took me and I had so much fun and I’m so glad you took my kid and I know my kid had a lot of fun.’ ” 

While the seats Obermeier once shared with his uncle have long since been demolished as Met Stadium is now the current site of the Mall of America, the memories are still there. The memories of the parking lot, walking up to the stadium and walking through that tunnel and seeing the green grass of the field for the first time. 

It's a special kind of memory, your first trip to an NFL stadium, and for Obermeier, he gets to relive those memories through the reactions of the kids who are feeling the same thing he felt on that cool crisp October Sunday in 1972.  

“I can see the look on their faces, especially for the ones who've never been exposed to professional football,” he said. “The first time in a big stadium like that. It’s so cool for me to see their eyes and the expression on their faces. That’s how I felt my first time and a little bit of that feels that way every time I go. I see the great big field. It brings me back to the memories when my uncle first took me.”