{"id":11757,"date":"2016-11-14T22:07:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T03:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=11757"},"modified":"2016-11-15T07:41:42","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T12:41:42","slug":"the-most-dedicated-fan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html","title":{"rendered":"The Most Dedicated Fan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"Football Feature - Dr. John Risher\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZJvtzUerLqA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you think you are a sports fan, think again. Maybe you never heard of John Risher who is\u00a0106-years-old and loves the Virginia Cavalier football team. In fact, he&#8217;s a legend when entering the press box and the media room because of his dedication. You see Risher has been following the team since 1919 and played a game during the 1931 season back when players wore leather helmets. He graduated the following year and earned a medical degree in 1936. In 1963 he volunteered to do the game-days stats and solidified a place in team history.<\/p>\n<p>The passion has never left and the fact that he still drives an hour from\u00a0Lynchburg to Charlottesville\u00a0with his brief case to cover games instead of resting on a beach somewhere makes him a superfan. \u00a0For the road games the centenarian reportedly drives to Tom Fenstermaker&#8217;s house with a bucket of chicken. Fenstermaker heads up game-day stat operations for the team and views Risher as the go-to guy.<\/p>\n<p>What does the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/11\/07\/sports\/ncaafootball\/106-centenarian-john-risher-university-of-virginia.html?_r=0\"> nation&#8217;s most dedicated fan<\/a> do to remain healthy? The answer will surprise you and it has very little to do with eating like a rabbit. \u00a0The <em>New York Times<\/em> reported outside of fried chicken \u00a0Risher likes grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate milkshakes, Coca-Cola, fried oysters, ice cream, hamburgers and rare roast beef. He also loves bacon and waffles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody asks me, &#8216;How have you lived so long?&#8217; I tell them, &#8216;luck, mostly.&#8217; I&#8217;ve always been active in athletics, but I&#8217;ve never amounted to much,&#8221; he shared with the <em>Roanoke Times<\/em>. Like Risher there are more Americans living to the age of 100. In 2014 there were 72,197 in the U.S. aged 100 or older&#8211;an increase from 50,000 in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it is fried chicken, luck or sports. One thing is sure, the oldest living Virginia football alum is not slowing down.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you think you are a sports fan, think again. Maybe you never heard of John Risher who is\u00a0106-years-old and loves the Virginia Cavalier football team. In fact, he&#8217;s a legend when entering the press box and the media room because of his dedication. You see Risher has been following the team since 1919 and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Most Dedicated Fan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most Dedicated Fan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you think you are a sports fan, think again. Maybe you never heard of John Risher who is\u00a0106-years-old and loves the Virginia Cavalier football team. In fact, he&#8217;s a legend when entering the press box and the media room because of his dedication. You see Risher has been following the team since 1919 and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-15T03:07:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-11-15T12:41:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Corine Gatti\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Most Dedicated Fan","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Most Dedicated Fan","og_description":"If you think you are a sports fan, think again. Maybe you never heard of John Risher who is\u00a0106-years-old and loves the Virginia Cavalier football team. In fact, he&#8217;s a legend when entering the press box and the media room because of his dedication. You see Risher has been following the team since 1919 and&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2016-11-15T03:07:29+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-11-15T12:41:42+00:00","author":"Corine Gatti","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html","name":"The Most Dedicated Fan","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-11-15T03:07:29+00:00","dateModified":"2016-11-15T12:41:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/3013f619d142ceac521a13c1921d991a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2016\/11\/the-most-dedicated-fan.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Most Dedicated Fan"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/3013f619d142ceac521a13c1921d991a","name":"Corine Gatti","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/51f\/51fa4157b4c0c24fbc082089eb7db284x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/51f\/51fa4157b4c0c24fbc082089eb7db284x96.jpg","caption":"Corine Gatti"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/authors\/c\/corine-gatti-santillo.aspx"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/cgatti"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11757"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11779,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757\/revisions\/11779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}