0 0 2B Wednesday, October 5, 2011 // The Statement I Wednesday, October S 01 / Te taemn thctt statement MagazineEditor. Carolyn Klarecki Editor in Chief: Stephanie Steinberg Managing Editor: Nick Spar Deputy Editors: Stephen Ostrowski Devon Thorsby Elyana Twiggs Designers: Maya Friedman Hermes Risien Photos: Jed Moch Copy Editor: Hannah Poindexter The Statement is The Michigan Daily's news magazine, distributed every Wednesday during the academic year. To contact The Statement e-mail klarecki@michigandaily.com. LOVE THE DAILY? SUPPORT US IN A TWITTER THROWDOWN AGAINST THE STATE NEWS FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @MICHIGANDAILY THE BATTLE ENDS OCT.15 #BEATSTATENEWS TH EJUNKDRAWER random student interview by kaitlin williams Welcome to the randomstu- dent interview, where we ask complete strangers to validate their lives. There's a lot of pressure on me for this to be funny... Funny? Yeah. So first off, do you think I'm funny? Yeah. Already? You don't even need to hear the rest of the interview? Yeah. You're a very animated char- acter. So I'm not real. I'm an animated character. What would the name of my show be? Your animated show ... hmm ... have you ever heard of "The Ugly Truth?" No. Explain. It's a show about the ugly truth of what men usually find in a relation- ship. Oh OK, wasn't that an awful movie with Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler? Yeah. They're not animated. So how do I fit? I feel like you'd be directing another woman's perspective on that. Oh, OK. And you got all that from the beginning of the interview? How insightful. Yeah. So, what's your favorite coffee drink? I like "Crammin' Caramel" from (Bert's Cafe in) the Ugli. OK, what's in that, other than a shit-ton of caffeine? (Laughs) Yeah, that's the important part. There's caramel, white choco- late, milk. It's not really healthy, but that kind of stuff. So what does that cost you? About $7? No, it costs I think it's three. It's totally worth it. Yeah that's really cheap. Who needs food when you can get something like that? Yeah. So, it's warmtoday. Shocker. How do you feel about sunbathing in the Diag? Is it appropriate to sun- bathe in this weather? Know what? I wouldn't put it past some students here. I wouldn't. There's going to be someone. Where are you from originally? 20 minutes away. Oh, so are you feeling a bit regret- ful about staying in Michigan for college? No, I love Michigan. And I love my family, so... OK, but if you could, hypotheti- cally, move your entire family, where would you go? Hmmm... Europe. Where in Europe? Europe is pret- ty big. I think maybe, maybe France. I feel like that's a sexy country. It's sexy? Like how? Is it just the language? Yeah. Do you know any French? Yeah, I know some. I have a couple of friends from France. Are you happy about the trees changing color? Yeah. My mom says, "Tree alert," so whenever I see a tree I'll say, "Tree alert!" And I'll be by myself under a red tree. OK, that's great. Do you get strange looks when you are doing that? Yeah, I do. Do you ever worry about the squirrels attacking you? I'm a little afraid of the squirrels here. They're a bit too up-close-and-per- sonal for me. What do you think about hunt- ing? Hunting. I think it's gross. I don't think people should hunt. Are you avegetarian? Nope. No? Then, if you had to, what would you do to survive? Let's say I dropped you in the Upper Peninsula and you had to fend for yourself? I feel like I would talk to the animals first, tell them I was sorry, and then I'd kill them. Don't you think that would scare them off? Quietly. Well, hopefully it would scare them off so I wouldn't have to kill them. So you'd have to subsist on ber- ries and twigs? Yeah. Besides I don't really have time between Ugli sessions to go out and shoot deer. How did your library session just go? It went well. I just went in and got a water. I have class, and I forgot a water. Well I hope I'm not making you late. Are you late for class? Oh, no. I actually have a break. Well if you are late it'd be a good excuse to say you were doing a random student interview. Yeah. Tell your professor it was my fault. I'm famous, you know. - Melanie is an LSA freshman. conditions, she's often had to travel alone because her partners backed out at the last second. But Day has never once considered cancel- ing a trip. "There have been several times where I've gone, 'Eh, this is not going to be fun,' but there was never a doubt whether I was going to go," she said confidently. These days, she still greets the team on the road at their hotel. And while all she gets is a "hug and a hi," she fondly remembers the days she stayed up late in hotel lobbies, play- ing cards or backgammon with the players. She considers herself close friends with many former players and coaches, including former men's basketball coach Steve Fisher and former football star Jarrett Irons. There was also the day when former men's basketball coach Bill Frieder called in 1979. "He called me in one day and asked if I would mind sitting in the first row behind the bench because he needed someone that would make some noise and said that the guys wanted me to sit there," she recalled. For nearly every game since, Day has sat or stood with the Maize Rage, behind Michigan's bench. Day's attendance isn't perfect, but she's as close as they come. The man behind the mask never miss- es a chance to watch his maize-and-blue adorned heroes on the field, ice or court. But to some on that ice, Jeff Holzhausen is their superhero. The man forever known as the original "SuperFan" considers himself just a fan, but you'd be hard pressed to find many who've helped the Wolverines in the way Holzhau- sen has. "I've had parents of (hockey) players come up to me and say, 'Hey, you're one of the rea- sons my kid came to Michigan,'" Holzhau- sen said. "That happened again at the Frozen Four this past year. "That means the world to me. It's where you really feel like the 12th man and you're really having an impact on the continued excellence of Michigan athletics." Holzhausen, or 'Holz,' graduated from Michigan in 1996 and has since returned for two master's degrees. The 37 year old lives in nearby Chelsea, where he was raised as a Wolverine fan. For every home game on Saturdays, Hol- zhausen's dad would blare tracks of former Michigan announcer Bob Ufer to wake up his kids before the family headed to Ann Arbor to tailgate. His first time being a crowd favorite came as his high school mascot- the Chelsea Bull- dog. But that was just the beginning. Midway through his freshman year at the University, a cheerleader at a football game tabbed him as "SuperFan" because of his unique costume: a Michigan flag as a cape, a megaphone and his signature accessory - a winged-helmet and maize-and-blue Batman mask. "I've always been a big Batman fan," Hol- zhausen said, laughing. "I love the look of it, and it fit right in with the SuperFan, super- hero design. It's been with me ever since." He added a new piece to his outfit at Yost Ice Arena: a cowbell. Today, seeing cowbells at a Michigan sporting event doesn't draw any double takes, but 20 years ago they were unheard of. That all changed with Holzhausen who, along with two friends, introduced the cow- bell to Wolverine fans at Yost. The SuperFan then brought the instrument and its "go blue" cheer to Crisler Arena and the Big House. He was also the first to dance to the Bluse Brothers' "Can't Turn You Loose" at Yost, where you can still find him dancing in his blue Grand Poobah, or water buffalo, hat. Even the NCAA has taken notice of Hol- zhausen. His picture is part of a longtime exhibit in the College Football Hall of Fame, and many of the infamous curse-filled chants at hockey games - which also caught the NCAA's attention - have Holzhausen and his pals written all over them. "I think you try wherever you go to leave the place better than what it was when you got there," Holzhausen said. "College foot- ball and college sports are all about tradition, and I had a hand in starting a few." Foam fingers hang in his room - a con- stant reminder that Michigan is number one. Not that Patrick Brown needs it. Brown, a senior in the School of Kinesiol- ogy, is this year's SuperFan - SuperFan XI. "If you would've asked anyone, like my parents, they'd say I've been a Michigan SuperFan since I was 5 years old," Brown said. "So to be distinguished as someone like that, it shows my dedication to the school and the sports." Today, the Michigan SuperFan is a posi- tion elected by the members of Maize Rage who choose the most diehard upperclassman fan on campus. "To be the SuperFan, you have to go above and beyond your typical fan," Brown said. "I definitely didn't get into the Maize Rage to become the Superfan. I did it because I love basketball. For my peers to decide that for me, among everyone else in the Maize Rage, it was very humbling. It was really surreal." Brown joined the Maize Rage during his sophomore year, when he became a sec- tion leader in the student section at Crisler Arena. You can find him in the front row wearing his infamous maize-man morph suit, which got him plenty of notoriety that year. "If you asked the Maize Rage, they'd say I'm a media whore," Brown laughed. "They know me as 'CBS,' because there was a game during my sophomore year against UConn where (CBS) production manage- ment took me on their bus and told me to go crazy because they wanted to feature me as the "super fan of the game." "At every TV break, there was me going crazy," he recalled. "They asked me to go crazy all game." The position comes with perks. Brown was sent to the annual Big Ten Sportsman- ship Conference by the University's Ath- letic Department, which also gives him front-row tickets to every football game. Past SuperFans pay for Brown to attend each away game and supply him with the SuperFan uniform: a cape, cowbell and a No. 11 football jersey - signifying his title as Superfan XI. Along with football and basketball games, Brown can be found at hockey, women's basketball, softball, baseball and volleyball games and is always trying to publicize the Maize Rage. Brown's room is covered in Michigan paraphernalia. Posters decorate the walls, commemorating the Wolverines' national championships. "It's definitely a SuperFan-esque room," Brown says. And then, there are those foam fingers. Though they may say, "Michigan is No. 1," it's Brown who's the campus's current num- ber one fan. THE MICHIGAN DAILY IS NOW ACCEPTING YOUR BOTTLES FOR OUR 3RD ANNUAL HOME BREW COMPETITION Bring your beer to 420 Maynard on weekdays between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. by Oct. 16. E-mail klarecki@michigandaily.com for more information. I I In L. Your Beer Here I