She-Bears ready to roar!
FEMALE FANS RANK WITH GUYS ON PRIDE, LOYALTY, STAT SAVVY
There is a breed of sports maven whose loyalty never wavers, whose die-hard (sometimes face-painted, booze-fueled) devotion remains constant through foul weather and fair. These unabashed obsessives are commonly referred to as superfans, and no franchise is more identified with them than a certain team of soon-to-be-world champions, which come Sunday will expunge the competition in Super Bowl XLI.
A team that is known as ... Da Bears.
Here's the thing -- and this may come as a shock to some: Not all superfans resemble Bill Swerski and his consonant-clipping, heart-attack-having Ditka disciples who first appeared on "Saturday Night Live" in early 1991.
(Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times)
Gail Freund, 57, is one of them. An inventory supervisor at a steel warehouse in Franklin Park, she lives in a Bear-a-phernalia-bedecked Mount Prospect home and takes three weeks off each year to attend Bears training camp in Bourbonnais.
Every. Single. Day.
Her fanaticism has deep roots.
"I remember every Sunday morning it was a ritual," Freund says, recalling fond memories of superfandom that began in earnest decades ago. "My dad would go outside and grill some steaks and we'd have an early dinner and open a bottle of champagne as the Bears were kicking off."
Freund's 86-year-old father, Bud, a former Navy mine sweeper and meat market owner, says his far less sports-crazed wife never ridiculed their weekly gathering -- or the caterwauling that invariably accompanied it. "She knew we were dyed-in-the-wool sports fans and Bear fans, and so if she didn't want to listen to the game, she'd just take her book and go in the other room. She knew there was no way to stop us from seeing our Bears."
"My mom was always big into the Bears," says Schmidt, a legal secretary from Evergreen Park, "and when they won the Super Bowl [in '86], she used to quiz me all the time on who was what number. I knew a lot of stuff. I knew what positions they played, what Jim McMahon's passer rating was for a particular game."
She was 6.
Now 27, Schmidt keeps TV tabs on her team from a strategically positioned sofa seat. A parking sign above it reads "Bears Fans Only." And if the phone rings during a broadcast, she ignores it or questions the hapless caller's poor timing. "People call me and I'm like, 'Why are you calling me? The Bears are on.' "
Forty-year-old Susan Rhein of Midlothian, a season ticket holder who attends the annual Bears Fan Convention downtown (among other Bears-centric gatherings), "kind of grew into the Bears on my own." Her interest intensified when she watched (and spent all day tearing up confetti for) the victory parade following Super Bowl XX in 1986, and it hasn't waned a bit since then.
"Can you hear the voice?" she asked recently, laughing. "I'm hoarse since Sunday. I lost my voice at the [playoff] game. When I was turning around trying to talk to somebody, my voice just went dead."
Her older sister Donna offers an explanation. "You need earplugs sitting next to her. She's like a siren that goes off, and people just kind of look at her."
Rhein's screaming, Donna says, is complemented by pompon waving, dancing in the aisles "and everything else. People just go along with her. She's just a blast."
"Growing up, we would go to the games when it was negative 10 degrees," says Firstenberger, the youngest. An event organizer for Pivot Point International Academy beauty and cosmetology school, she signs her e-mails "bear down" and helms a blog at www.shecagobears.com. "We would get in sleeping bags and snow pants and go cheer on the Bears."
Minus the leggings and kid cocoons, that's still the case today. Miller Lites in hand, Bears colors blaring, they attend every home game together (often arriving an hour early to watch the squad stretch), root for their respective "boyfriends" (favorite players) and make their presence felt.
"Amy will sometimes police people," says Jones, a trained opera singer with pipes built for bellowing. "She's been known to give people a piece of her mind when they're talking on audibles.
"She'll stop them and be like, 'Uh, excuse me, buddy, you're supposed to be quiet.' And they don't really know. They just give her a high-five and keep on going."
Martin, an accountant at Abbott Labs in Waukegan, says Jones' diaphragm-propelled vociferousness "reaches a level of noise that makes my husband cover his ears" when they watch games at home. "He said he's never heard anything quite like that."
"I think they know [we know] what we're talking about most of the time. We know what's going on and we know the game."
So do Rhein and Freund and Schmidt and untold legions of uncommonly loyal ladies just like them who'll give any sausage-snarfing Swerski-ite a run for his mustache.
On the subject of which, mini-Ditka with no eyes and one lung vs. Da Bears -- who wins?
"Definitely the Bears," Schmidt says. "Without cleats."
We'll let that one slide.
"After hours of deliberation, Da Superfans have ruled in favor of allowing females into our ultra-exclusive group if they can pass the following tests:
• They must have a blood pressure of at least 180/190.
• They must either be able to grow a real mustache or have a flawless fake.
• They must be able to name the entire practice squad of the 1986 and 2007 Bears -- in alphabetical order.
• They must have had at least two heart attacks, or have a family history of heart attacks.
• They must be able to eat four fully loaded Chicago-style hot dogs in under 30 seconds. This is non-negotiable.
• If they are able to pass these tests, then they could fill out the application to be a Superfan. The waiting list is about eight years (the same as for Bears season tickets)."