Goalpost Man ruled weirdest

And the kicker is, he gets two tickets to the Super Bowl.

By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 23, 2003

TAMPA -- A dusty lot beside Raymond James Stadium brimmed Wednesday with creativity, team spirit and a distinct lack of dignity.

Only one person could win the Super Bowl trip for two that radio station WDAE-AM 620 was giving away to the Bucs' "super fan."

But that didn't stop several dozen diehards from trying.

The 9-foot-tall grim reaper. The Bucs dominatrix with an Al Davis look-alike in tow. The woman who dyed her chihuahua red. (He turned out pink.) The girl dressed as a bloody, beaten-up Raiderette. The man painted red, wearing only a red Speedo, gyrating underneath the afternoon sun.

They all came with dreams of dressing weird Sunday 3,000 miles away in San Diego.

They screamed. They cheered. They danced. They pranced.

In the end, judges narrowed the finalists to 10. Speedo man, whose name is David Gore, didn't make the cut.

"I gave it a lot of effort," said Gore, a nurse in Sarasota. "I thought for sure I'd get the win. I guess I wasn't popular enough."

In the end, it was Goalpost Man, a.k.a. Todd Ramquist of Safety Harbor, who won. He showed up dressed as a crazed referee while attached to two stuffed Bucs players who mimicked his every dance move.

Ramquist, an artist who moved to the area during the Bucs' inaugural year, said he plans to take his longtime girlfriend.

"Whooooooooo!" was all he could muster after his victory. That, and, "We were just hoping to win."

Judge Debbi McCarthy, a special projects manager at WDAE, said picking the winner was like a parent picking one child over another.

"We were looking for originality, creativity, Bucs spirit and an ability to wow the crowd," McCarthy said. "We all had our favorites, but in the end it was unanimous."