Unwavering super fan fixture at Titans games

There are rules, probably collecting dust in the Library of Congress, about who gets to be “Super.” Value meals and sporting events aside, self-appointment is unacceptable.

There’s no Cartesian shortcut to superdom, no “I think therefore I am.” Almost always, grateful crowds bestow the title on those who readily deny receiving it. Which is why Bob Christensen never rises to the bait of the title “Super Fan.”

Christensen, 64, is not a cape-wearing super, nor super good looking, so the requisite deniability comes easy for him. He’s missing a couple of teeth. His peppered beard is a bit scraggly. His gait is slow, but determined.

He is, however, the best fan the U-Hi Titans girls softball team has ever had, a bedraggled Clark Kent to their hard-swinging Lois Lane.

“Come on, girls. Go to work,” Christensen barks. He is standing downfield from first base a few paces from the foul line at Shadle Park High School where the Titans and the Highlanders are battling for the league championship and a guaranteed playoff spot.

“Come on, U-Hi. You got to get aggressive. We’re not out of this.”

Sometimes Christensen likes it when the Titans get a little behind in scoring. It’s a team that rallies well, though today they are down 3-0 and the hail of softballs has erupted as the Highlanders pad their lead.

With two innings left, there are Titan parents already looking toward their minivans. They’ve stopped praising individual play and now cheer feebly, as if coaching their children to the end of a marathon trip to the dentist.

Super Fan Bob never stops rooting, even when the score is 7-0 and the moms and dads around him are silently crafting “cheer-up” speeches.

“He started showing up and rooting for us in the early 1990s,” said Don Owen, a Titans assistant coach. “No one knew why he was coming, or where he was coming from.”

There was some parental concern. Parents and siblings of players fill the bleachers at girls softball games. Even with free admission, the sport seldom attracts outsiders. Owen knows of at least one parent that had a background check done on the Titans’ super fan, but there wasn’t much to uncover. Most of what there was to learn about Christensen could be had by talking with him.

Coaches, who like Christensen stayed around after the players graduated and parents moved on, learned over time that Super Fan Bob wasn’t flush with cash and rode the bus to most of U-Hi’s games. He’d moved from Clarkston several years ago looking for work. Owen remembers giving Christensen a ride home one night after a game and winding up across the street from an Arby’s Restaurant in a rough section of downtown Spokane.

The afternoon games U-Hi plays fit well in Christensen’s schedule. Christensen is single and works mostly nights as a security guard at Spokane Arena.

To hear Christensen tell it, he attended a couple of U-Hi games by chance a decade ago and wound up following the team’s progress all the way to the playoffs. Since then, the Titans have become the Yankees of local girls softball. U-Hi has been to the playoffs nine straight seasons now and won the state title.

En route to all those victories, the U-Hi players and coaches never forgot about Christensen. He was at enough of their games that they noticed when he wasn’t. One team several years go offered Christensen a U-Hi hat and sweat shirt, figuring if he was going to be fanatical, he should look the part. A couple of parents even helped the super fan get to out-of-town playoff games. After all, every super hero needs to be helped out once in a while. It’s in the rulebook.