BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. And we're playing this week with Tom Bodett, Faith Salie, and Bobcat Goldthwait. And here again is your host at the Bass Concert Hall in Austin, Texas, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you. Right now it is time for the WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
EVAN BENJAMIN: Hey, Peter. It's Evan Benjamin.
SAGAL: Hey, Evan. How are you?
BENJAMIN: I'm doing fabulous.
SAGAL: I'm glad to hear it. And where are you calling from?
BENJAMIN: I'm calling from Atlanta, Georgia.
SAGAL: Atlanta, Georgia. What do you do there in Atlanta?
BENJAMIN: I'm a computer geek. And I guess you say I do a little computer forensic and stuff like that, you know? I'm the guy who could go after Lois Lerner's e-mails right now.
SAGAL: Oh, you could?
BENJAMIN: Oh yeah. I'm just waiting to do that.
SAGAL: All right. Well, welcome to the show Evan. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Evan's topic?
KURTIS: 2, 4, 6, 8, who's the team that can't rhyme good?
(LAUGHTER)
BENJAMIN: Oh my goodness.
SAGAL: Sports fans are nuts, almost as nuts as NPR fans. I mean, really.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: But this week, we read a story about sports fans taking their team support, perhaps a little too far. Guess the true story, you'll win Carl Kasell's voice on your home voicemail. You ready to play?
BENJAMIN: Yes I am.
SAGAL: First let's hear from Tom Bodett.
TOM BODETT: The fighting coyotes of Alice Texas High School had lost six games in a row and hadn't put up a winning football season in almost a decade, when the lone woman in the long black coat first sat down in the bleachers. I was walking to bingo when the heel came off my boot, she said later - had to wait for my husband somewhere. Well, that night the coyotes won 22 to nothing. The next weekend, they were behind 13 to three at the half. The lady showed up again, this time to watch her niece in the marching band. They went on to win by 20 points. People noticed. A reluctant legend was born. Tia Deonna Ramirez has been the drafted good luck charm of Alice Coyotes through 22 consecutive winning seasons and four state championships. It's not always been easy on the spry and aging matron of Alice football. For one thing, she can't stand football.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: Fans and boosters bring her flowers and BBQ brisket. When her car broke down a few years back, she was chauffeured to the games with a police escort until a local car dealer simply gave her a brand-new Lincoln, which he has done every year since. When the arthritis in Tia Deonna's back threatened to sideline her from the bleachers, a heated vibrating La-Z-Boy recliner was installed above the 50 yard line where the cheerleaders can often be seen rubbing la Tia's feet and lighting her cigarettes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Tia Deonna, the somewhat unwilling lucky charm for a Texas High School football team.
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SAGAL: Your next story of out-of-control fans comes from Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: When you hear the word Corinthians, do you first think of the New Testament verse, love is patient, love is kind, it does not boast, it is not proud? If so, then you're not a fan of the Sao Paulo football club Corinthians, with 25 million devotees in Brazil. Those soccer nuts are so proud of their team, that their love never dies, which is why the club is opening the Corinthians Forever Cemetery, where enthusiasts can choose to be buried in one of 70,000 plots. Deceased Corinthian players will be buried there too, and you can pay between 4,500 and 7,800 reais. That's between $1,800 and $3,000 to spend spiritual overtime close to your idols.
The cemetery marketed under the slogan, for those who are fans from the beginning to the end...
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: ...Even offers a burial package that includes flowers in black and white club colors, a coffin-sized Corinthians flag and a choir singing the club's official anthem.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: A graveyard where fans of a soccer team in Sao Paulo can be buried next to their beloved players. Your last story of extreme fandom comes from Bobcat Goldthwait.
BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: Gaelic football, the most popular sport in all of Ireland has some extremely hard-core fans. But none are as rabid as Colin Burke, who recently went through a series of painful plastic surgeries to look more like his kicking hero, Seamus Coleman. But these surgeries weren't to look more like handsome Everton star in the face, but to look more like him in the foot. You see, Coleman's early career was almost ruined by the amputation of his right foot's baby toe, so Burke had his baby toe removed to look more like his hero. He is a living example of overcoming life's adversity, said Burke. But Burke's ultimate fan sacrifice not only cost him his digit, which went wee, wee, wee, all the way home...
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDTHWAIT: ...It also cost him his job. Colin Burke was a full-time river dancer. And although he claims he can still tear it up - the carpet like Michael Flatley, king of the riverdance, his bosses don't agree. People want to be astounded by the dance, they don't want to see some screwy football fan hobbling around like a one legged chicken.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right. Let us then imagine as a fan, that you might do one of these three things. From Tim Bodett, practically kidnap an old lady because you think she was a good luck and force her to attend all games. From Faith Salie, buy a funeral plot in a cemetery offered by your favorite team so you can spend eternity moldering next to your favorite players. Or from Bobcat Goldthwait, get your own foot mutilated so it just matches the foot of your favorite Gaelic football player. Which of these is the story of true serious over-the-top fandom?
BENJAMIN: Oh my God. OK.
(LAUGHTER)
BENJAMIN: I'm going to go with Faith.
SAGAL: You're going to go with Faith.
BENJAMIN: I'm going to close my eyes and go with Faith on her story.
SAGAL: You're going to choose Faith's story of the cemetery offered by the Brazilian soccer team. Well, we spoke to someone familiar with the real story to bring you the truth.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM ANDREWS: They are building a 70,000 plot cemetery so that their fans can be rooting for the team from the grave.
SAGAL: That was Jim Andrews. He's a sports marketing expert at IEG in Chicago. Congratulations, Evan. You've got it right. You earned a point for Faith.
SALIE: Thanks, Evan.
SAGAL: You've won our prize. Carl Kasell will record a greeting for your voicemail. Thank you so much.
BENJAMIN: Bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOPELESSLY DEVOTED")
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN: (Singing) Hold on 'til the end, that's what I intend to do, I'm hopelessly devoted to you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.