Winthrop is going to the Super Bowl (at least these alumni are)

The day Charlotte hosted its first NFC Championship Game, the people in the stands cheered as the Carolina Panthers clinched a 49-15 win over Arizona and a trip to Super Bowl 50.

A short time later, the people behind the scenes at Bank of America Stadium let out a cheer of their own, when they clinched the same trip.

“They sent out an email right after the game ended, telling us about Mr. Richardson’s generosity,” said Panthers employee Ryan Petrus, of team owner Jerry Richardson’s offer to pay for some 600 team staff and their families to fly out to California for the big game.

Petrus, a Fort Mill resident, got a job with the Panthers after he finished a sport management degree with Winthrop University. He and two other graduates of the program – Bonnie Almond of Charlotte and Brian Pille of Clover – are among the many employees of the team getting a trip to see Cam Netwon and Carolina take on the Denver Broncos.

“It’s high madness right now,” said Almond, a 2010 Winthrop grad who works as the stadium’s guest services coordinator. “We have to prepare for packing and everything, but there’s still so much to do here ... it’s surreal.”

Both Almond and Petrus work for the team’s guest services, managing services for fans at the stadium – Petrus doubles as a security manager on game days – so qualifying for the Super Bowl has created extra demands on the group.

“Our team store is swamped,” Almond said.

In addition to helping fans visiting the stadium, guest services is organizing team employees’ Super Bowl trip. Before being bused from Bank of America Stadium to the airport Friday morning, travelers brought all their luggage to the stadium on Thursday for pre-screening by security.

Despite the hard work and hectic schedule, the team behind the team sees this as the reward for a season of hard work off the field.

“We were out here chipping ice the day before (the NFC championship), thinking ‘we’ve got to make this worth it,’” said Petrus, a 2006 Winthrop alum.

Pille, the most recent Winthrop grad to join the Panthers, started work as a human resources assistant after earning his master’s in sport and fitness administration in 2014. The Cleveland, Ohio-area native got his start with the team working part time on game days while he was still at Winthrop.

“If you’re in sport management, you would be crazy not to work here,” he said.

“I played sports all through high school and college, and this weekend is kind of the ultimate goal.”

Pille is taking his wife, a special education teacher at Springfield Elementary in Fort Mill, as his guest on the trip – a treat since, after the couple had their first child at the beginning of the season, this will be her first Panthers game all year.

Petrus, now back at Winthrop teaching a sport management class of his own, will be taking his wife to California as a kind of family vacation.

“We have two little kids who are too young to enjoy the game, so it’s just going to be her and I,” he said. “We’re staying in San Jose, and we’ll go into San Francisco on Saturday.”

For her plus-one, Almond is bringing her sister, who also worked part time in stadium operations this season as the person responding to fan texts from the stands.

“She still can’t believe it,” Almond said. “She thinks someone’s going to pinch her. It’s unbelievable.”

Having her sister along means Almond will have some family on hand for another big occasion; Super Bowl Sunday also happens to be her birthday.

“I keep forgetting it’s my birthday. I usually take a whole week or a whole month to celebrate it,” she said. “This is the biggest present I could get. I’ll just pretend they’re having a huge party for me.”

Football games don’t usually produce a party atmosphere around the office. These spectators have spent every other Panthers game at work, so Sunday’s clash with Denver is not only the biggest game of Carolina’s season, it’s also the first chance for most of them to sit and watch the team.

“It’s absolutely going to be different,” Pille said. “I’m going to be watching the game and feel like I should be doing something.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 3:25 PM with the headline "Winthrop is going to the Super Bowl (at least these alumni are)."