Since Halloween 1992, Steve and Karen Hjerpe have attended every Memphis-Tulane football game. Their story is about a team, a city, and the love that keeps bringing them back.
They Came for the Tigers. They Built a Tradition Together.
Before there was a streak to protect, there was a trip to take. Steve and Karen Hjerpe came to New Orleans on Halloween in 1992 to watch Memphis State play Tulane. Steve Matthews was the Tigers’ quarterback. Memphis State won 62–20 in the Superdome.
They could not have known that, nearly 34 years later, that afternoon would stand as the beginning of something they were still doing together. Every Memphis-Tulane game since. Both cities. No missed meetings. Friday night, they were back in New Orleans, where Tulane defeated Memphis 31–17 at Yulman Stadium.
The result was disappointing. Their presence was not surprising. Karen is my mother. Steve is my stepfather. I have watched their love for Memphis football long enough that, when this matchup comes around, I expect them to be there.
But something changes when you stop treating that presence as a given and consider what it represents. Nearly 34 years of making room for the same team, the same matchup, and another trip together. The football matters. So does the person beside you.
A City Woven Into Their Story
New Orleans is more than the location of their first game in this streak. It is the place they have kept returning to, a city whose place in their lives has grown alongside the tradition. Their love for the city and their love for the Tigers have become intertwined. A Memphis game at Tulane gives them another reason to return, but the trip now carries the weight of all the visits before it.
That is what time can do to a place. A destination becomes familiar. Familiarity becomes affection. Eventually, returning means something different from simply going. For Karen and Steve, New Orleans holds the beginning of this story and many of its chapters. Their trips have followed the series from the Superdome to Yulman Stadium, where they watched Friday’s game.
The setting changed. They kept coming. Their streak also includes every meeting in Memphis. But New Orleans remains its starting point—the city where one football trip became the first of many.
Loving a Team Without Conditions
Their first game offered an easy reason to celebrate. Memphis State won by 42 points. There have been other rewarding visits. In 2007, Memphis came from behind three times and beat Tulane 28–27 on a last-minute touchdown. Karen and Steve were there. They were there for the 38–7 Memphis victory in 2014, too. And on Thanksgiving in 2024, they watched the Tigers win 34–24, closing the regular season with a 10–2 record.
Those are the games that make a streak sound like a collection worth keeping. But their commitment includes all the others. The strength of this tradition is not that they have witnessed memorable victories. It is that the promise of a victory has never been necessary to keep it going. No matter the record, this is their program. The next game is still worth attending. The next New Orleans trip is still worth making.
Friday supplied another test of the distinction between enjoying a winning team and loving a football program. Memphis committed six turnovers in the 31–17 defeat. Karen and Steve were there for that result, just as they had been for the triumphs. A bad night could change how they felt about the game. It could not erase the reasons they had come.
What I Have Seen
As a writer, I can look up the results and put the games in order. As their son and stepson, I see the years between them. I have watched this tradition become so familiar that I sometimes need to remind myself how unusual it is. Every meeting since 1992 is not a casual claim. It represents decades of following through.
And it represents something they have done together. I cannot speak for every private meaning these trips hold for them. But I can see the time they have chosen to share. I can see their affection for the Tigers and for New Orleans. I can see how both have become part of their life as a couple.
There is love in that repetition. Not the kind that needs a grand declaration. The kind expressed by making another plan, taking another trip, and sharing another experience—knowing that the outcome is uncertain, but the company is not.
To someone encountering their story for the first time, the attendance streak may be the remarkable part. To me, the remarkable part is looking at all those years and knowing whose lives they represent.
The Reason to Return
You do not have to care about Memphis football to understand this story. You only have to know what it means to have a place you love, something you believe in, and a person with whom you want to share both.
For Karen and Steve, those connections have endured across nearly 34 years of this matchup. The Tigers have given them victories and disappointments. New Orleans has given them a place to return. They have given each other the time.
That is the dedication behind the streak. The record book will preserve the scores. It will not show what it meant for two people to keep going together. My mother and stepfather began this tradition with a Memphis State blowout. Friday, they continued it through a Memphis loss.
The Tigers did not give them the ending they wanted. But the team was never responsible for the most important part of the trip. They brought that with them.
