Every sports team can claim its share of loyal and devoted fans -- fans who will cheer in good times and in bad.

But one would be hard-pressed to find a fan as loyal and devoted as Ronnie Weintraub is to Manhattan College, especially given that he's working at what some may consider a disadvantage.

The 43-year-old Weintraub is mentally disabled. He lives in an apartment under the supervision of a group-home manager and works as a courier for a local law firm. By train, the trip from his apartment to the Manhattan campus requires him to change trains twice and eats up nearly 90 minutes.

None of that, however, slows Weintraub's roll.

Rich Ensor, commissioner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and one of Weintraub's good friends, said about five or six years back the conference dubbed Weintraub as the MAAC's No. 1 fan at the league's annual basketball banquet.

"I have always had a fondness for Ronnie because he's overcome his handicap and relates to people so well. He's just a big fan and any of us who are in athletics enjoys that type of fan," Ensor said.

'He's become part of the place'

Although basketball is his favorite sport, Weintraub has been known to appear at other Manhattan athletics events such as cross country meets, softball games, lacrosse matches, graduation, the athletics award banquet and the school picnic.

Ensor said Weintraub also has a keen interest in politics and has been sighted on the podium behind politicians giving victory speeches.

As Ensor put it, "You just never know where you'll run into Ronnie."

About 15 years ago, Weintraub showed up at a home men's basketball contest one night, insisting he was the guest of Bob Byrnes, Manhattan's athletics director.

Byrnes recalls that in the spring of 1989, he met Weintraub during the first Metro Games for Special Olympics. Manhattan was serving as one of the hosts for the event. Weintraub, a Special Olympian himself whose medals are a constant fixture around his neck, introduced himself to Byrnes and asked if he could be a guest at a basketball game. Byrnes agreed but it didn't stick with him that much.

"Honestly, I remembered a guy asking me but I didn't really remember much more than that," he said. "But from that night on, he started to come all the time and not just to basketball and not just men's basketball. He's kind of become part of the place."

Stats man

To get an idea of just how ingrained Weintraub has become in the fabric of Manhattan athletics, consider this: Weintraub attends nearly every Jaspers home men's basketball game. But he also makes a good many of the away contests as well, either catching a ride with Byrnes or taking a train to get there. On the way back, he hops on the team bus.

But it's not just his love of Manhattan athletics, and in particular men's basketball, that sets Weintraub apart. He also is well-known for keeping stats at the games. It's something Weintraub said he's been doing for 20 or 30 years. So from his seat at the men's basketball games, which is often somewhere along press row, he tracks the game by scribbling a string of characters in a spiral notebook, unintelligible to most anyone but Weintraub, himself. But they are accurate. He makes copies and distributes them at the games.

Byrnes said he sometimes affectionately refers to Weintraub as "Rain Man."

"His statistical work is very difficult, if not impossible to read, but it's very accurate," Byrnes said. "If he reads his work to me and I look at the computerized stats, he's accurate. During halftime of one game, I went over a whole bunch of them and there was only one item that differed from the official stats."

In addition, Weintraub harbors a ferocious commitment to the Special Olympics. That passion, Byrnes suggests, was part of Weintraub's initial attraction to the school.

"It was special to him that we had the first Metro Games, and they needed a home at that time. That meant a lot to Ronnie," Byrnes said.

He also theorizes that Weintraub has found acceptance at Manhattan, which also hosts an after-school program for a small group of special-needs children.

"The student body embraces and accepts him. It's a nice thing," Byrnes said. "He's a living example of why our student-athletes should be grateful for their blessings."