After attending around 1,000 St. John’s men’s basketball games, John Kowalski is undoubtedly the school’s No. 1 fan.
He’s also, by default, the school’s biggest ticket collector.
Shortly after attending his first game as a student season-ticket holder in 1972, Kowalski started saving his tickets from every St. John’s game.
“I don’t know why I did it,” Kowalski, 69, a retired bonds trader from Forest Hills, N.Y., told cllct Saturday. “I guess just for the nostalgia, the memories.”
On Saturday, cllct announced Kowalski would receive $2,000 at the school’s “Coming To America” Night, held on the 37th anniversary of the St. John’s game the was featured in the “In The Face” scene in Eddie Murphy's 1988 movie.
As part of the promotional night, cllct and St. John’s announced the top three tickets from the ECAC Classic, in which St. John’s beat Rik Smits and Marist 66-59 on Dec. 28, 1987, would receive $1,000 each.
Several ticket collectors have looked for the ticket from the night the famous scene was filmed, but to no avail.
Four longtime St. John’s ticket holders came forward with a ticket from the game at Madison Square Garden, with Kowalski, remarkably, producing the top two.
"I am not surprised that three of our longest tenured season-ticket holder families had these three tickets and won the contest," St. John's athletics director Ed Kull said. "That shows, once again, the passion our fans have to our history while also being excited about the future of St. John’s."
So excited to be working with @EdKullStJohnsAD to usher in the collectible era in St. John’s history.https://t.co/22sbUlzK6g
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 26, 2024
Along with a nearly pristine stub, Kowalski found a full, unused ticket from the game.
“When it was announced that there was a search for this ticket, I knew I was at the game, because every time I’ve seen the scene in 'Coming To America,' I tell my wife, ‘I was there.’”
The story of why he had a full ticket is similar to collector Mike Cole, who sold the only full ticket to Michael Jordan’s 1984 NBA debut for $468,000 in 2022. Like Cole, Kowalski had no one to go with.
“I always got two seats,” Kowalski said. "I guess I wasn’t dating anyone at the time.”
The game wasn’t particularly memorable at the time. There was no media coverage of the movie shooting a scene at the game, and St. John’s barely beat Marist to advance to the tournament championship game against Larry Brown’s Kansas team, which was led by Danny Manning and went on to win the NCAA title in 1988.
For as long as there were physical tickets, Kowalski would return home from a game and file it into one of his plastic bins. The stubs sat there in recent years, with Kowalski not particularly following as ticket became a collectible trend.
Now, his self interest in preserving memories has paid off.