For this week’s “Fan Friday”, our season finale, I’m proud to be able to feature one of our most dedicated & loyal readers. From Chuck’s post on the “Red’s Army.com Hall of Fame“:.
Jester started reading Red’s Army while stationed as a Combat Medic & Staff Sergeant with the 463rd Engineer Battalion of the US Army in Balad, Iraq. It was 2005, and the C’s were in the second year of Doc Rivers’ tenure. Folks like Jester and Tim(FireDoc) could be found ranting and/or raving in the comments section of every post. Jester tells me that the main thing that got him hooked on the site was the no BS approach of founders John & Chuck. They spoke to and for the average Celtics fan, and like Jester, they loved a stiff drink. As the years went on, and Red’s Army began hosting live call-in style shows, Jester would dial them up and introduce himself with his trademark “Good Morning..”-even if it was 10pm on the east coast. Jester’s been here through it all-the ups & downs of the Celtics, a guy starting an entire blog devoted to how much our site sucked and even some of the live chats that we ran:
Jester has also been known to play the occasional joke or two hence the moniker “Jester”. Like the time he called into “Celtics Talk Radio” and impersonated me. When I actually called in for my guest appearance, I had no idea what was going on, and the show’s host found out that he had been talking to a KWAPT impersonator. Nice one Jester:
Jester grew up in Bridgeport, Ohio. Coincidentally, Bridgeport is also the hometown of one of the greatest Celtics of all-time, John “Hondo” Havlicek. Jester has fond memories of watching some of the glory days of Celtics basketball with his father, who was also a big fan. Once a young Jester saw the passion & love that his dad had for the boys from Beantown, he quickly drank the green Kool-Aid himself. He lists Larry Bird’s amazing triple-double against the Blazers in 1992 as the most enjoyable game he and his dad watched together. Bird went off for 49 points, 14 rebounds & 12 assists in Boston’s 152-148 double OT win. It was a duel for the ages, as Portland’s Clyde Drexler (41 pts) and Larry Legend went back & forth hitting one big shot after another.
Jester attended Ohio University Eastern in St. Clairsville, Ohio. He played on the men’s bball team all four years of his stay, and rocked “00” in honor of the great Robert Parish. Despite being a big fan of “The Chief”, Jester says that his all-time fave Celt is Kevin McHale. As for this year’s team, he really likes the nucleus of Rondo, Sully & Avery Bradley. He also likes a lot of what he’s seen from young Kelly Olynyk. We are both in complete agreement that Olynyk needs some muscle. Once he hits those weights, he should do much better against the bigger, stronger guys that he’s encountered over his rookie season in the NBA.
Jester and I wrapped-up our discussion by talking about the future of this team. He feels that this will be a rather quick rebuild. He does not envision Danny & Wyc taking a very long time to bring some talent into town. But in the meantime, he says that if he could get through the 2006-07 disaster, he can get through anything. And I agree. Jester is what you call a die-hard. That term is thrown around quite a bit nowadays, but in his case, it could even be an understatement. This guy absolutely loves the Boston Celtics and will be supporting them until the day that he dies.
I want to send a huge thank you out to Jester for participating in Fan Friday, and also for his unwavering support of Red’s Army for the past 9+ years. You can follow him on Twitter via this link, and he’s always posting his opinions, thoughts & sometimes unintelligible drunken banter in our comments section. Welp, this is it-another year of “Fan Friday” over. Thank you all so much for reading, and GO CELTICS. Have a great spring/summer everyone! -KWAPT