Superfan needs your help to carry on his tradition

Josh White Jumping the Gun

When fans stood and started to chant "Superfan, Superfan," during Friday night's hockey game against Miami (Ohio), all Jeff Holzhausen could do was raise his arms up and bask in the attention - his expected noise was abated when a police officer confiscated his coveted cowbell and stick for the duration of the game just minutes earlier.

Holzhausen said that hearing the cheers "was just the greatest ... that was the best."

While Superfan calls the Miami game one of his greatest because he nearly got ejected from the stadium for getting up into a Miami fan's face, it was just a small marker on a long career. After years of chanting, cheering, ranting and jeering, Superfan's days are numbered - and he's looking for a replacement to fill his mask and cape.

Superfan, aka Jeff Holzhausen, who will receive a masters degree this May and end his years as a University student, seems as much a part of this University as anything else I have known - a constant part of football Saturdays and a vital cog in the rambunctious Yost wheel. He seems like he should be here forever, like he should be taunting refs and helping cheerleaders for an eternity. As he looks to pass the torch to, he hopes, a "very young student, possibly a freshman," he too looks to start a tradition the likes of which this University should not abandon, a tradition of deep-seeded love for the maize and blue.

Holzhausen has missed just one football game in recent years, attending both home and away contests regardless of their location. His lone absence was in Colorado last season due to a wedding he attended: "Looking back, I should have gone to the game," he said. He has seen three national championships in person - swimming, hockey and football - and has been attending Michigan Stadium since the ripe age of three weeks, when he "was there" for the Ohio State-Michigan tie of 1973. ("I don't remember it, but it must have been a good one," he added, smiling.) He said his Superfan days started a few years ago when the cheerleaders gave him the name after spotting his cape and mask - but Holzhausen has been the Superfan since birth.

At Holzhausen's high school in Chelsea, they have named an award after him, giving praise to the "most spirited junior" at the high school. He said his high school officials want him to return to present the award this year - something he considers an honor but not much of a surprise. It seems he evokes spirit in the meek and turns the average student into a raving lunatic; and all with raw ability.

At Friday night's game, an usher who is a regular at the upper-level Section 16 entrance (where Superfan sits) and was a party to having Superfan's bell removed, said his antics rile up the crowd to a point of being "intrusive" to others in Yost, and the usher pointed out the opposing team's fans, the elderly and young children who hear a constant barrage of swears, lewd comments and jeers throughout the game.

"It has gotten to a point where kids are repeating the chants at home and in school," the usher said. "One recently got in trouble at school for saying what the students say after a penalty - you know, with the chump, dick, wuss, etc. - and then people point to Michigan and think badly of it."

But Superfan says he usually doesn't appear in costume at Yost "because the fans don't need me here," despite his usual role in most of the traditional cheers and his ability to lead the crowd. "I am just being me, that is what is hardest for most people to understand."

And that is what will be hardest for the next Superfan, and undoubtedly the most important challenge: to be him or herself. Holzhausen said some of his friends truly understand that his antics are for fun and just a part of the way he is, but others think that he goes too far, that his screams and derision should have a breaking point. He said people accuse him of being intoxicated at games (he doesn't drink alcohol), of being too loud (at Yost or Michigan Stadium?) and that fans often threaten to get ushers to control him (he has been ejected from one football game "for getting up on the wall" in his early years as a student, but now is quick to assure you that the field director for the Department of Public Safety has an autographed picture of Superfan on his office wall.) This all seems way too much for it to be an act.

Superfan has been on every major sports network and has been an unofficial mascot for the University since he started to don a cape, a mask and those Michigan sunglasses he wears - even at Yost. He will be sorely missed. He said that he will still attend as many games as he possibly can and that he will always be "Superfan," but the task of finding a successor has not been an easy one, and he needs your help.

If you know someone who can yell louder than anyone you have ever met, who bleeds maize and blue, who doesn't mind making a complete fool of themself, and who will risk being assaulted by Brutus the Buckeye, please encourage them to apply. Superfan can be reached at holzie@umich.edu or at your local sporting event.

We need you to come out of the woodwork before it is too late. We need a Superfan.

-Josh White can be reached over e-mail at jswhite@umich.edu

02-17-98