BUFFALO, N.Y. — I’ve done a lot of these segments showing the crazy fans and some crazy fan rituals that you may not have seen before. But eventually, you get to pay respects to the King. "Bills Elvis", John Lang, says he created this persona in 1992 on
"A bet and a dare to see if I could get on television. So, I found an old suit in the closet. My wife painted up some sideburns and chest hear me and I got on the broadcast. And I was on ESPN later that night. Well, my whole section loved, and it was a lot of fun. And everybody kept saying you got to do it again. You got to do it. So I kept doing it."
Thirty one years later, the mild mannered salesman still rocks the stadium as the "Bills Elvis." He is perhaps the most famous Bills fan character. He has traveled as "Bills Elvis", recently attending a Wyoming Cowboys game. where Josh Allen went to school.
John has done a lot of charity work over the decades too. He coordinated, with officials from his hometown of Lockport, a tailgate party to benefit Kids Escaping Drugs.
Another party benefitted the family of Lockport’s Aaron Salter, the heroic security guard who died in the May 14 mass shooting in Buffalo. John won the 2022 Bills Fan of the Year award from the team.
People joked that he, with all of his unique experiences, should write a book. So he did. It’s titled "Elvis is in the Scrumdown", and it’s available at Amazon.com.
Last year, John and a few dozen tailgating friends, had their tailgate gear stolen from a truck while they were at the game. Speakers, cooler, heaters, were all taken.
John recalls, "It was a big surprise, and we ran the gamut of emotions because we're angry and devastated. Next day, somebody had started a GoFundMe for us. And then all of a sudden it raised too much money. And if we were like 'what to do now', so we got together and donated what we didn't use into the Patricia Allen fund at Children's Hospital."
John further explains: "I tell anybody we're the craziest wildest fan base on earth but we're also the best and most sincere and the most giving by far"
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