Here, Rich, circled, looks on as Pete Rozelle presents Packers head coach Vince Lombardi with the Super Bowl trophy after Super Bowl I.-- All photos courtesy of Dion Rich

There he is, holding Tom Landry's right leg, carrying the coach off the field after Super Bowl XII. There's his arm around Bill Clinton. Tiger Woods. Gwyneth Paltrow. There's Sammy Sosa and Trevor Hoffman, giving old Dion the bunny ears. There's Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman next to Dion at the Academy Awards.

Still, the collection isn't perfect. The world's greatest party/game/event crasher has a wish list, with two names on it.

"It's kind of strange, but I'd like to get a picture with Fidel Castro," he says. "And maybe (Osama) bin Laden."

Funny thing is, if anybody could track down the world's most wanted man, sneak his way into his inner circle, snap a quick Polaroid and then dash away without ever being noticed, it just might be Rich.

At 73 years old, he is the Michael Jordan of party crashers. Sunday, in his hometown, he'll attempt to crash his 34th straight Super Bowl. The NFL knows he's coming. They always do. Yet it doesn't seem to matter.

In the past, they've used an undercover sting operation, threatening letters and verbal intimidation to keep Rich from sneaking into the stadium. This year, a police spokesman said that every security officer working the game has been briefed with pictures of Rich and his various disguises.

If there's ever a year the streak could end, this might be it. Yet if you were a betting man, you'd put your money on Rich being in the stadium for kickoff. And his ticket, which he usually carries in his back pocket just in case, won't be torn.

"People always ask me if a terrorist could crash the Super Bowl. I guess it's possible," he said, "but highly unlikely. They don't have my expertise."

	The night of Super Bowl XII, Rich carried Tom Landry off the field, joined him on the victory podium and danced with his daughter at the victory party. "The hat trick," he said.-- All photos courtesy of Dion Rich

Not only has Rich crashed the Super Bowl, last year he snuck his way through the ticket office at Pac Bell Park to attend the World Series. In previous years, he's crashed the Academy Awards, the Olympics, the winner's circle of the Kentucky Derby and Cuba.

Yes, Cuba.

"I wanted to get in while they weren't letting any Americans in," he said. "Just to prove a point."

He's not only carried Landry off the field, but John Madden and Chuck Noll as well. He has a picture from Super Bowl I in which he's on the victory stand, joining Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr and NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle for the trophy presentation. He's brought water to players during timeouts. And at one Pro Bowl, managed to walk with the AFC team into the locker room at halftime.

The year he carried Landry off the field, he also joined the head coach during the trophy presentation and then danced with his daughter at the victory party.

"I call that the hat trick," he said.

By his own accounts, Rich was either on television or photographed in a publication in 21 of the first 22 Super Bowls. He's also snaked his way into countless Hollywood premieres, Playboy parties and governor's balls.

"I do it for the rush, for the excitement," Rich said. "Ever since I was a little kid and would hop the fences to go to the midget races, I've loved the thrill of the chase. People always wonder when I'm going to grow up, but I don't really want to."

Rich has used wigs, cowboy hats, baseball hats, glasses, mustaches, and even fake beards to sneak into events. He's also carried clipboards and walkie-talkies to impersonate security personnel. He has a trunk full of press credentials that he mixes and matches to confuse guards.

	Now we know why Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck broke up.-- All photos courtesy of Dion Rich

He always seems to get the last laugh. Before Super Bowl VII, NFL security personnel warned Rich that if they caught him on the field after the game, he was going to have hell to pay.

"I just gulped and said, 'Yes, sir,' " Rich said. "Two weeks later, there was a perfect picture of me and Don Shula in Newsweek running off the field together."

When you hear the stories, when you listen to the tricks, you expect to find a man of charm. You expect someone smooth and suave on the outside, calculating and daring on the inside. Yet meet Rich and you find a relatively unassuming older man who is more con artist than secret agent.

At 73, he's starting to lose his hearing, wears a toupee to cover his baldness and lives in an empty apartment with scattered paperwork and a sleeping bag on the floor. He works out of his home as a ticket broker/travel agent/real estate broker and has two phone lines, which never stop ringing. A former Southern California nightclub owner, he's never been married.

"The closest I ever came was when one of my girlfriends was three weeks late," he said.

His mind races like a hamster caught in a spinning wheel -- constantly spiraling for the next advantage. He noted to one recent visitor his trick for always getting a great parking spot everywhere he goes.

"Forget about a handicapped sticker," he said. "This card that I have says I have to pick up somebody in a wheelchair. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. It's great."

But not everybody thinks it's funny. Going through its photo and video archives in the late '80s, the NFL grew increasingly irritated when it realized the same individual kept popping up during postgame. So before Super Bowl XXIII, the NFL set up a sting operation, hiring an undercover Miami police detective to impersonate a journalist. During an interview, Rich detailed his crash plans and just before the trophy presentation, the officer nabbed Rich on the field.

"This guy taps me on the shoulder, and he's like, 'Dion, you're out,' " Rich recalls. "'You have to stop this because you're costing the league thousands of dollars.' From that point, I promised the league I wouldn't go on the field anymore."

Last February, the Secret Service came to his apartment, threatening that if it caught him crashing the Salt Lake City Olympics like he did the Super Bowl, he would be committing a federal offense. And he'd go away for a long time.

"They trailed me from the moment I got off the plane in Salt Lake to the moment I got back on it," said Rich, whose been caught, but never sent to jail. "So I didn't play any games.

"I never want to cause any problems. If they catch me or throw me out, I listen. It's not a good idea to make waves with the cops."

	Even presidents aren't out of reach for Dion Rich.-- All photos courtesy of Dion Rich

So how does Rich do it? What are the tricks of his trade? Ever since the sting operation, he refuses to reveal specifics. He does, however, say there are a handful of traits that any successful crasher must have: A great disguise, some sort of credential, plus luck, timing, skills and a lot of guts.

Rich possesses them all. He's a five-tool crasher.

"You have to play the part, dress the part and act like you belong there," he said. "And once you're in, the key is to keep moving."

As Rich sees it, the prognosis for Sunday isn't promising. He attended the Chargers last two home games to "case the joint" and found very few holes in the Qualcomm Stadium perimeter. In 1988, he slid through a service entrance and, 10 years later, slipped through the media entrance to gain entrance to the Super Bowl. He expects neither avenue to be open Sunday.

Combine that with an overload of media publicity and Rich thinks this could be the year the streak ends.

"The deck is stacked against me," Rich said. "It will probably be the most difficult crash of my life. I'm going to need one heck of a disguise."

The NFL won't comment on Rich, but a San Diego police spokesperson said that the department is more than aware of his exploits and has made "significant plans" to keep him from entering the stadium without a ticket. They include passing Rich's picture out to every security officer in attendance.

Yet similar precautions were taken last year in New Orleans. And in the heightened security shadow of 9-11, the self-proclaimed "King of the Gate Crashers" snuck into the Superdome fortress in six minutes.

Bet against him? Bad idea.

"I always thought that if there's such a thing as reincarnation and I don't come back as a fire plug, I would be a burglar," he said. "I could make a killing."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com