Purple People
The Crazy Culture and Customs of Minnesota Vikings Fans, the Best Fans in the NFL
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Excerpts from: Purple People The Crazy Culture and Customs of Minnesota Vikings Fans, the Best Fans in the NFL |
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Buy Now $20.00
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Ried Holien is an award-winning author of sports and history who remembers events in his life according to Minnesota Vikings games. The year he got married? Disappointing because the Vikes went 8-8. The birth of his first child? Holding her took the sting off the Vikings blowout loss to the Giants in the NFC Championship game. You will find Ried every Sunday during football season either at home watching the game or partying with friends at the Metrodome. His claims to fame are that he was one of the inventing members of the Young Vikings Cult, which invented the “1...2...3...First Down!” Cheer, the “AC” and “CC” cheers, and the “Bring out your chains!” cheer. He’s also one of only two (along with his brother) people stupid enough to regularly dance to the Hormel Row of Fame song. As a Vikings fan, Ried has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, and ESPN. With his horns, occasional make up, cape and demeanor, he has been telestrated twice by John Madden, appeared in the Vikings Gameday publication five times, in the year-in-review team video twice, and was made fun of and/or otherwise commented on by announcers Phil Simms, Troy Aikman, Pat Summerall, and Bryant Gumbell.
Ried lives in Watertown, South Dakota, with his wife, Tonya, and four children—all of whom are being raised to bleed purple. His writing has appeared in such magazines as: PGA Tour Partners, Golf News, Midwest Highways and Byways, South Dakota Magazine, Civil War Times Illustrated, Highlights and several newspapers. His first book (Purple People is his third), Skeletons of the Prairie, won several awards and was recognized as one of the best historical books of 2001.
Steve Belatti reluctantly moved away from his beloved Midwest in the early 1990s because he met a pretty redheaded girl from Oregon and moved out there to marry her. While there, he’s worked many jobs, including writing sports for area newspapers. Despite being far away from his beloved Vikings, Steve goes out of his way to follow the team, including watching the team on the NFL Ticket, calling friends back in Minnesota to talk Vikes, and taking frequent trips back. He lives in Portland with his wife, Suzanne, and two children, Claire and Anthony.