John F. Steadman

News-Post  Jan 7, 1958

SPORTS EDITOR SAYS:

'Willie The Rooter' Gone But Not Forgotten By Team With A Heart

A face in the crowd.  A happy, smiling face.  And a face that's going to be missed because "Willie The Rooter" became the most famous fan in the history of Baltimore sports.  Willie made people happy. 

He worked as a car painter.  He didn't make much money.  Willie lived from day to day with no thought of tomorrow.  Well, "tomorrow is today."  And the frank truth of the matter is that Willie left a wife and two fine young boys with little in the way of this world's goods. 

Willie's friends have inaugurated a "Willie The Rooter" fund.  Public subscriptions are being solicited so Mrs. William Andrews, Willie's widow, will be able to pay the rent and put some groceries on the table. 

THE BALTIMORE COLTS,  a football team with a heart, kicked-off the fund raising drive yesterday with a $1,000 contribution.  This is the first time to our knowledge that any pro team ever worried about the family of an old cash customer who was both dead and broke.  The Colts also gave the widow and boys season tickets for as long as they wanted them.  Whether one of the two young Andrews grows up to become "Willie The Rooter II" remains to be seen. 

"Willie The Rooter" was a fanatical follower of the Baltimore Colts.  Even the priest who spoke at the funeral over Willie's casket said as much.  He put it like this: "William Andrews was a happy man and he liked to have people enjoy life the way he did.  Bill was end man in our minstrel show for ten years.  He played Santa Clause for 1,100 children.  But Willie's greatest moment was when he lead the cheer from the center of the Stadium at the Colts' final game.  Willie loved the Colts and the crowd." 

"Willie The Rooter" got into trouble with one of his former employers because he painted some of the signs that he carried to Colt games on company time.  He passed up a payment on his car so he could make the trip to Detroit and watch the Colts play the Lions on October 20. 

The 39-year-old cheer-leader typified the quest for identity that lurks within all of us.  He found his fun, frolic in the stands when the Colts were playing. 

He was buried with a "Colt Corral" membership button on his lapel.  And you can bet that somewhere up in heaven, "Willie The Rooter" is trying to convince St. Peter, Keeper of the Gate, to let him sound off the way he used to do down on earth when he marched around upper deck chanting his cheers.

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THE COLTS STORY

Fan Loyalty

Willie's Credo 

The News-Post and Sunday American are proudly presenting a condensed version of Sports Editor's John F. Steadman's book, "The Baltimore Colts Story." 

By JOHN F. STEADMAN

Sports Editor, News-Post

CHAPTER 2

Willie The Rooter 

The foremost Colt fanatic of all time was one William Andrews, alias "Willie The Rooter."  He died Dec 26, 1957, of a heat attack at the age of 39, but not before establishing himself as the loudest and most loyal fan the team ever had. 

On Christmas Eve, the night before he died, Willie and his family were visiting friends.  'They were singing Christmas carols.  But Willie abandoned "Deck The Halls With Boughs of Holly" and launched into "Lets Go, You Baltimore Colts." 

Willie left two sons, William and Maurice, and both say they are going "to take Willie's place and cheer for the Colts the way dad did." 

Often Willie put the Colts ahead of his own personal obligations.  Some of the signs he carried to games he painted on company time.  He conveniently forgot about a monthly car payment so he could make the trip to Detroit and watch the Colts play. 

WHEN WILLIE was laid to rest in New Cathedral Cemetery, Alan Ameche, Joe Campanella, John Unitas, Art Donovan, Don Kellett and the writer (John Steadman) served as pall-bearers.  A "Willie The Rooter Fund" was shortly thereafter announced and the Colts contributed $1,000 to the campaign to help provide for Willie's widow and children. 

Willie constructed a colorful horse's head out of paper mache and trimmed it in blue and silver paint.  Each year he designed a new head. 

"I called my first horse's head 'Upset" because the Colts pulled so many in 1955," he once explained.  "After one season, he was retired and then I made 'Upset Jr.' Now I have 'Upset III.'  When I retire them, they get a place of honor in my house." 

At each home game, Andrews, his wife and two boys would lead cheers in Section 36.  He waited outside the locker room, win or lose, after a Colt game.  He even had what he called a "cheer-up cheer" when the Colts lost.  It went like this: 

"You Had To Lose 'A' Game,

"But Yeah Colts!

"Yeah Colts, Yeah Colts, Yeah Colts,

"1,2,3,4, Who Are We For,"

"Yeah Colts, Yeah Colts, Yeah Colts!"

In a newspaper story prior to his death, Willie offered a prophetic quote to Walter Ward of the Sunpapers, "Every time the Colts lose, I die," he said - hardly thinking that six weeks later the Colt players would be attending his funeral. 

ANDREWS WAS a member of "Colt Corral No. 1," a novel fan club which was originated by Leo Novak, a plumbing contractor from East Baltimore and Ed Loud, a dealer in pet supplies who lives in Mount Washington.

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