Krazy George: Still Krazy After All These Cheers

Book excerpt: Krazy George made the world stand up and cheer. His autobiography is the good-natured, factual, and humorous account of how he transformed himself from George Michael Henderson, a shy Clark Kent to Krazy George, the leather-lunged firebrand he is today. Armed with just his unamplified voice and his drum, he invented the most celebrated fan participation cheer in the world, The Wave, also known as La Mexican Ola. In the process he created a brand-new career as the world's only full-time, lifelong professional cheerleader. Twenty-five million people have allowed Krazy to lead them in stadium-wide roars of excitement. Over a hundred major and minor league teams have hired him, often for multi-year contracts - teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, the Minnesota Vikings, the Houston Oilers, the Oakland A's, the San Jose Earthquakes major league soccer, the British Columbia Lions - Canadian football, and the USA World Cup Soccer team At a time when fans were polite and sedate, Krazy George put the twelfth man on steroids. The NFL's 1989 Crowd Noise rule was aimed at shutting down both George and the crowd. Clearly they didn't succeed. Even today, you may not see George at your game but his manic presence is there. Sports' aficionados or anyone else desiring to learn more about this fascinating character and his unique forty-year career will delight in this wild and krrr-a-zzz-y guy's vivid anecdotes of the unanticipated, behind-the-scenes events, that enabled him to catapult himself into the mega-sports' entertainment business. And yes, he's Still Krazy After All These Cheers. "He (Krazy George) neither looks nor acts like a sultan of screams, a nabob of noise, a dealer of din, a pedlar of pandemonium. Even at low volume, though, his cracked, high pitched voice betrays him. He is indeed, a guy who has been heard to shriek for a living. A weekend wild man they call Krazy George." --- Larry Wood, Calgary Herald "Back in 1981, in the stands of the sold-out Oakland Coliseum, Krazy George Henderson had a vision. On this October afternoon, his beloved A's were in the playoffs against the Yankees, and he imagined the crowd rising in a giant unbroken wave of human energy. Krazy George invented The Wave. And in the process he changed the way people, from all over the world and from different walks of life, come together to cheer, express themselves, share their passion and create something bigger than themselves.That's why I believe The Wave is not only an extraordinary act, it is a great symbol of our human connectedness and interdependence and thus the perfect metaphor for the kind of leadership we need in our ever more interdependent world. With this book, Krazy George invites us to enter his world of Wave-making. He shares his formula by teaching us how inspiration gets people up out of their seats, contributing their full passion and energy, creating a competitive advantage - and having fun in the process. The 21st century demands that we all find the Krazy in us, and by reading his words, we can all come to appreciate why The Wave is a metaphor for what a diverse group of people can accomplish when they share passion, a vision and values." --- Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN - Author of "HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything" "If Larry of the Three Stooges were cloned with Harpo Marx and the result talked like Andy Devine chewing sand, one would have a close facsimile of Krazy George, the world's only professional wild and crr-azy guy." --- Peter B. Gallagher, St. Petersburg Times