A Look at the Superfans

“Root, root, root, for the home team,” says the famous baseball song. But some fans don’t just “root.” They take rooting to a whole different level, with costumes, horns, and much, much, more. Here are some examples of some of the most insane fanatics over the years.

Dick Coffee was named the Number 1 college football superfan in America by ESPN.com. The most obvious reason for this is that the University of Alabama football fan hasn’t missed a game since 1946! This man’s incredible streak stands at 741 games and counting! Like the polite man he is, he wears a coat and tie to each game. His streak started after he finished fighting in World War II, as a freshman at LSU (just kidding, Alabama.) Another freshman playing football at the same time Coffee was a freshman was Brown University’s Joe Paterno. That’s what I call a fan!

Ken “Pinto Ron” Johnson is my personal favorite superfan of all time. Every year, my dad and some of his friends travel to Buffalo to see a Bills game. Nicknamed the “Commissioner of Tailgating,” Ron drives his 1980 Ford Pinto wagon to the games. The hood of the car becomes a grill to use for his tailgate! He throws an army helmet on the car, fills it with oil and Buffalo wings, and cooks them up! Some other infamous cooking strategies he has are cooking pizza in a file cabinet, drinks from his trusty bowling ball, and popcorn in an old hubcap. Ron also still owns a bag of chips opened during the greatest comeback of all time in 1993. He takes a tiny nibble of the 19-year-old chips before every game. What an incredible fan!

North Carolina verses Duke. Maybe the most heated rivalry in all of sports. At the UNC campus, students will do just about anything to get these tickets. That’s why each year teams of students try to do the most disgusting tricks in front of 100-plus other students to win a pair. Some of these tricks include shoving anything from live salmon to Vaseline into their mouths! The winning team gets court-side seats to Duke-UNC game. What would you do for a pair of these tickets?

There are many insane fans out there, from huge college supporters like Dick Coffee, to Pinto Ron, to the UNC college crazies. You may even know a superfan yourself. But the real question is, are you a superfan?