Big Lo’s the Heart of Seattle Sports

By Justin “Dr. Love” Stiles
Love of Sports Correspondent

In 1984, he invented the “D-Fence” sign for a Seahawks/Raiders game.

He has a secret handshake with the Supersonics mascot.

The Sonics have a hotdog delivered to his seat each game at halftime.

He shovels snow and scrapes the windshields of the player’s vehicles at the airport an hour before they arrive from a road.

Lou Piniella, when he managed the Mariners, used him as a reference to the team during a motivational speech.

He can’t be missed in the South end zone at Qwest Field holding up the famous SEA-Fence sign.

He’s the first to arrive at each game greeting the players and the last to leave lending even more support.

And he has an action figured modeled after him with movable limbs and interchangeable signs for all three Seattle teams.

He is Seattle’s biggest sports fan - and when I say ”biggest,” I’m not exaggerating. Standing at 6-foot-8 and 450 pounds, the “About Me” section of Lorin Sandretzky’s MySpace page reads: “I haven’t missed a Seahawks game in 15 years, I’ve missed just four Sonics games in 15 years and I miss maybe 15 Mariners games a year out of 82. I live for sports.”

Three of the four Sonics games he’s missed were each excused with a doctor’s note. The fourth was due to him traveling to Detroit for Super Bowl XL – Seahawks vs. Steelers.

He’s known affectionately by everyone in Seattle as “Big Lo.” It’s an amazing story of a great fan, but that’s truly just the surface.

He actually won the Washington state lottery in 1997. He split it with his family after making a pact with them, and took home $187,000 of it. That money literally saved his life.

Shortly after he won the lottery, he died. Yes … he died. Actually, he died three times! After emergency surgery to remove a flesh eating fungus that showed up on his leg, he used the money to pay for the medical bills.

Is this man’s cup half full or half empty at this point, huh?

Getting a job when you’re 470 pounds isn’t easy, unless you become a bouncer at a strip club, which he eventually did. He’s had three friends die in his arms after being shot, his mother passed away from cancer when he was seven years old and his older cousin - who filled in as the maternal role in his life - disappeared one day. Nine months later, her skull was found near a logging road. He suffered from depression and used alcohol and drugs to cope with it.

One night, Dennis Rodman came into the strip club he worked at (shocking, I know) and offered him courtside tickets. After that, Big Lo began requesting them from all the athletes that came in. He soon began going to sporting events regularly.

When he first started going to games he was able to let his frustrations go by yelling as loud as he can. He made the great decision to clean himself up and quit drinking and quit smoking pot. The games themselves were his new drug.

The louder he cheered, the better he felt, and what a better place to be loud and let out your frustrations than Qwest Field or the Kingdome. Going to the games became his way of dealing with his depression and fighting through everything those things he needed to fight through.

To this day, he’s always armed with a sharpie and a disposable camera, never shy to ask for a picture or an autograph. In fact, his house is jam packed with sports memorabilia. Shelves full of jerseys, shoes, balls, shirts, cards and anything else you can think of from such names as O.J. Simpson to Mike Holmgren.

His four bedroom house has so much memorabilia he doesn’t even have room for his father, who lives in the back house. He hopes to someday open a show room with the proceeds going to start a charity to help underprivileged children play sports.

His most prized possessions? A pair of signed shoes by Shaq and a black leather glove signed by O.J. I’m not kidding. He even has a glass case to display it. In fact, it’s the only item he’s displayed like that.

I wonder what that’s worth.

The news of losing the Sonics has been heartbreaking to say the least. At the last home game this season, he held a sign that read, “I’m the Sonics’ biggest fan, and I’m too big to move to Oklahoma.”

Clay Bennett approached him several weeks ago and asked Big Lo, “Do you hate me yet?”

Big Lo said, “No. Why would I hate you Clay? You’re a businessman.”

Even team owners care what he thinks. The truth is Big Lo blames Howard Schultz for selling it to out of state owners and not offering the team to local investors. But Big Lo isn’t going to let the Sonics leave with out a fight.

“It’s going to be one hell of a tug-of-war if they grant them permission to leave, because I’m going to be pulling on that bus.”

This last year particularly has been very hard for Big Lo and his health. He’s come down with the flu, a bladder infection and pneumonia. Most recently, he’s been hospitalized again because of complications do to diabetes. Blog writers and fans around the city have sent him emails, visited him and even sang to him via speaker phone to let him know how much he means to them.

His passion and loyalty for the Seattle sports is a way to thank them for saving his life and scaring the demons away. When asked about what people think about him he said, “Some call it stalking, some call it puzzling. I call it fun.”

In every way of the meaning, he lives for his teams and shows it in the biggest way.

Come on, the guy has an action figure … as a fan. Is there any bigger compliment than that?

We salute you, Big Lo. Keep doing what you do.