GLENDALE, Ariz. – Joyce Watkins, outfitted in a Titans jacket she made herself, looked around at the scene at Super Bowl LVII here on Sunday and could hardly believe it was real.
The 75-year-old Watkins has experienced the lowest of lows in her life – she served 27 years in prison for a murder she didn't commit.
But this day will go down as one of her highlights.
"This is a blessing, like a dream, really," Watkins said from Section 432, Row 1, Seat 7 at State Farm Stadium before kickoff. "I'm glad I got a chance to come. I'm enjoying it. I love it. It's a one-in-a-million, once-in-a-lifetime thing, to come to the Super Bowl.
"I wish I knew exactly who to thank for this. I want to thank somebody when I get back home."
Home for Watkins is now Franklin County, Tennessee. She'll return home on Monday after a big weekend that was paid for by the Titans, who named Watkins the team's Wesley Mortgage Community Hero back in December. Watkins received tickets to a Titans home game back then, and then a pair of tickets to Sunday's Super Bowl for being named their NFL Inspire Change Changemaker Award winner for the 2022-23 football season. She made the trip with her great niece, Tosha.
"It's a lot of fun, but it's madhouse – I've never been anywhere with this many people," Watkins said with a smile. "Everybody wants to know where I got this Titans blazer from. I tell them I made it. They say: You (sew) that well? I say, yes I do."
Watkins deserves all the blessings she gets, because her life hasn't been easy.
Back in 1988, when she was 41 years old, Watkins was sent to prison with Charlie Dunn, her boyfriend at the time, after being convicted of aggravated rape and felony murder of her grand-niece, who died after Watkins and Dunn took her to the hospital.
During the trial, the assistant medical examiner had erroneously testified during the trial the child's injuries occurred when she was at Joyce's house. The timeline stained the minds of jurors, and despite the fact Watkins and Dunn denied the charges and cooperated completely, they were found guilty by the jury.
Watkins served 12 ½ years at the Tennessee Prison for Women, and then went to Mark Luttrell Correctional Center in Memphis.
While she was there, she prayed.
"I was hurting my first year," she said. "I started praying about it, and I felt that one day if I keep praying about it, I will see my way out. And once I get out, I am going to do everything I can to prove my innocence."
Watkins, who moved to Tennessee and was living in Madison, Tennessee, at the time of the alleged crime, said she watched Titans games when she was in prison. It brought her happiness, she said.
She even had pictures of Steve McNair and Eddie George in her cell, along with a Super Bowl XXXIV teddy bear she made herself.
"I had the actual pictures of Steve and Eddie, when they almost won the Super Bowl," Watkins said with a smile. "The Titans teddy bear has a football in his lap. … I've always loved the Titans. I started watching the Titans when they were the Houston Oilers."
In 2015, at the age 68, Joyce was granted parole and released on probation in October 2015 after 27 years in prison after it was ultimately ruled her and Dunn were wrongfully convicted in the 1987 death of her 4-year-old great niece.
Watkins wasn't satisfied. She wanted to prove her innocence completely.
She remembers driving in the snow to the Tennessee Innocence Project offices in Nashville, asking them to re-open the case.
Last January, both Watkins and Dunn were completely exonerated, cleared of all charges, and declared innocent after the Tennessee Innocence Project and Nashville prosecutors fought for her release due to the inaccurate medical opinions of the case, which led the jury to rely on inaccurate and misleading information in the conviction.
Watkins became the first black woman to ever be exonerated in the state and only the third woman in Tennessee history.
"I was asking God to put someone in my life to help me prove my innocence," Watkins said. "And it came to pass."
Watkins returned to a different world when she got out of prison, with less family around her.
Dunn died of cancer in prison after learning he was going to be released on parole. He never saw his name cleared.
Watkins lost four brothers and a sister while she was in prison, and she has just two sisters left. She had 13 aunts and uncles when she was incarcerated, and now has only one left.
Despite the experience, Watkins has a great attitude about the experience, is upbeat, with a sweet disposition.
Watkins, in fact, now serves as a spokesperson and activist, bringing awareness to wrongful convictions.
In choosing Watkins as the team's NFL Inspire Change Changemaker Award winner, the Titans donated $10,000 to the Tennessee Innocence Project, and provided Watkins with the all-expenses-paid trip for two to the Super Bowl.
It's been perfect, Watkins said.
Almost.
"I wish the Titans were here in the Super Bowl," Watkins said. "Now that would have made it perfect. But this is a dream, and a blessing."
