The NY Times heeft -net voor the Super Bowl- een korte documentaire gemaakt over de bekende Wilson Football Factore, in Ada, Ohio. De focus van het verhaal ligt op een vrouw genaamd Helser die bijna 50 jaar in de fabriek heeft gewerkt.
“I was 19 years old. I put in an application at Wilson and I got the job, never thinking that I would be there for 48 years. I enjoyed what I did, so I just stayed.”
After almost 75 years of manufacturing footballs, much is still the same. The ball “must weigh no more than 15 ounces and must be in the form of a ‘prolate spheroid’ that is 11 to 11 ¼ inches long and 28 to 28 ½ inches around at its widest. A urethane bladder inside the ball is covered by a tan pebble-grained leather case.”
“I still get goose bumps when I grab a game ball,” Murphy says. “It’s the perfect shape, feel and smell […] When I’m at a Super Bowl, and I walk in that stadium at kickoff time, and I see that football sitting down there on that field, way down there on the field, I say, ‘I sewed that football’.”
