National Football League

Vikings fan keeps hairy vow to end

Published Oct. 25, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Here’s a beard story that has nothing to do with the Boston Red Sox.

Emmett Pearson was a Minnesota Vikings fan and a man of his word. He died on Monday at 83, having kept the vow he made after the Vikings lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl in January 1975: Pearson would not shave his beard until Minnesota won the Super Bowl.

The Vikings made it back to the Supe only one more time, losing to the Oakland Raiders two years later, so Pearson kept his beard for nearly 39 years. Three of his five children never saw him without the Amish-style whiskers.

And neither they nor anyone else would see him sans beard even after he died.

“He was very adamant that the beard not be shaved off,” the Rev. Kristi Mitchell, who officiated at Pearson’s funeral, told the Star Tribune.

“He had an unwavering conviction toward the Vikings,” said his daughter, Amy Pearson, who unsuccessfully tried to get her father to shave for her wedding 18 years ago.

Interviewed three years ago, Pearson had told the Rochester Post-Bulletin: “I made a vow, and I’m going to stick with it.”

And he stuck with his team to the end. Pearson was buried wearing a Vikings cap and sweatshirt.

Mitchell said: “We ended the service by singing the Vikings fight song.”

H/T Yardbarker.