ORCHARD PARK, N.Y — At the Buffalo Bills Thursday Night Football home opener in 2016 against the New York Jets, Bills fan Derrick Norman lost something really special.
Norman, aka Chef, has had season tickets for decades. He was cheering from his front-row seat when he realized something was missing.
"I was banging on the wall and cheering, and then I looked up at my hand- and noticed my ring was gone!" he said. "I looked at my friend and said 'I lost my ring! My ring is gone! My wife is going to kill me!'"
Norman and his wife Rahsaan got married in 2001. He says the news that he lost his ring didn't sit well at first, especially since he already had plans to go to a road game.
"We were going to Miami to a game," says Norman. "She said 'You're not going to Miami without a ring.' So she went to KMart or something and bought a ring to put on my finger to say 'he's taken'. I ended up with this ring from KMart. I've been wearing it ever since."
"It's a symbol of my family"
Until this past Sunday - when Norman was reunited with the Jets fan who found his lost ring seven years ago.
Jets fan Bud Bristol was sitting behind Norman at the game when the ring was lost. He even helped look for it, but said no one was able to find it at the time. When Bristol went to leave, however, he kicked something with his foot. It was Norman's ring, but Norman had already left.
"I picked it up and took it back to the lost and found," Bristol says. "At the lost and found, they wouldn't take the ring so in my pocket it went."
Bristol, who has been married 23 years himself, brought the ring back home with him to Sodus Point. He tried to track Norman down on social media seven years ago, but never found him. Still, he put the ring in safe-keeping.
"I have this little bag of special mementos of mine," Bristol says. "So I put it in there so I always knew where it was."
Flash forward to a few weeks ago - in 2023, when a Bills fan came into the bar where Bristol works. He ended up telling her the story of the ring and she took his card hoping she could help. Within a week, Bristol and Norman were on the phone.
"He said, 'I'm coming to the game to deliver the ring personally when the Bills play the Jets,'" Norman says.
"I always had the intention of going to a game, walking down and surprising him, and saying 'Hey man, do you remember this?'" Bristol says. "But I haven't had the opportunity to go to another game, it just hasn't worked out. Once he called me, I said 'I gotta do this, I gotta get this to the guy.'"
So the two met at the tailgate Sunday before the game. Bristol brought Norman the ring he hadn't seen in seven years.
"When he brought it back it just brought back so many emotions and feelings," Norman says. "I called my wife, she started crying on the phone. I let her talk to the guy. She thanked him on the phone and I'm over there boo-hooing and emotional. Good men cry. Good for the soul."
"Lot of emotion in that moment," Bristol says. "It was great to be part of it."
Bristol didn't stay for the game. He delivered the ring and went back home.
Norman says he's forever grateful to have it back on his hand.
"I want to say thank you," Norman says. "I really appreciate what you did for me and my wife. God bless him, and blessings are gonna come back to him because there's really good people out there. Still really good people out there."
