There are Panthers superfans, and then there’s Pat LeClair
Pat LeClair is taking the door off its hinges again.
He’s carrying the door downstairs, putting it in the trunk of his car, and he’s driving it the 14 miles from his home in Mount Holly to the Carolina Panthers practice field on Cedar Street in uptown Charlotte.
There are already roughly 70 signatures on this white slab of hollow-core wood, all belonging to former or current members of the Panthers organization. Jonathan Stewart. Thomas Davis. Charles Tillman. Ron Rivera. Steve Smith. DeAngelo Williams. TopCats. Even Sir Purr. But LeClair wants to keep filling in the blank spaces.
And if you think this is crazy, you should see the room that this door guards.
The 51-year-old plumber’s man cave is a wall-to-wall, top-to-bottom expression of Panther enthusiasm so overstuffed and outrageous that it causes fellow superfans’ eyes to widen in awe – while at the same time causing his wife to roll her eyes in tolerant amusement.
“Our agreement is: Just keep your stuff contained behind this wall, and we’re good,” Tina LeClair says, laughing. “If something (Panther-related) starts coming out into the main part of the house, I’m like, ‘Move it up the stairs. Come on. Let’s take it up in your room.’ ”
It would take the length of a football game to rattle off descriptions of all the Panthers memorabilia in this room, but take our word for it: Pat LeClair’s got a LOT.
Game-worn jerseys, signed. Game-worn cleats, signed. Helmets, gloves, wristbands. Panthers candles, Panthers notebooks, Panthers coasters, Panthers Beanie Babies, Panthers stickers, signs, hats, magnets, footballs, pompoms, cups, koozies, books, magazines, seats cushions, doormats.
An unopened box of Jake’s Flakes cereal from 2004, signed by Jake Delhomme. A framed set of 1997 season tickets, each of the 10 tickets signed by a different player (one of those: the late linebacker/coach Sam Mills). The padding from one of the actual Bank of America Stadium goalposts, recently discarded by the team, complete with the “NFL” wrap.
As he shows off the room, LeClair’s phone rings; it’s the “NFL on Fox” theme music. A few minutes later, he gets a text-message alert; it’s the Panthers’ trademark growl.
A friendship forged
His four dogs can be heard barking in a closed-off room on the other side of the house. The three boys are named Vinny (for QB Vinny Testaverde, who played one season with the Panthers), Hoover (for retired Panthers fullback Brad Hoover) and D-Will (for former Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams, now with the Steelers).
Williams is not only LeClair’s favorite Panther of all time but has also become a personal friend. LeClair has pictures to prove it – of him hanging with Williams, of him with Williams’ kids. There’s also a video on YouTube that shows Williams teasing LeClair about his dancing skills at a party in 2013.
If you go to Williams’ home in Charlotte, he says, you’ll find a photo of LeClair hanging over the bar. If you go to LeClair’s home, you’ll find a large walk-in closet entirely devoted to DeAngelo Williams memorabilia.
The majority of it is Panthers-related, but Pittsburgh is well-represented, too. “My friends are all giving me heck about the Steelers stuff,” LeClair says.
The most unique item in this “Williams Wing” is also the most eyebrow-raising: a “34” fashioned out of copper piping salvaged from the player’s house. “I was rerouting some plumbing in his house … so I just cut it all up and made his number.” (Yes, Williams is aware of this “souvenir”; no, he hasn’t alerted the authorities.)
‘I shoot every single play’
But what ties the whole room together are the many striking photographs on the walls – almost all shot by LeClair with a high-powered Pentax zoom lens, either from his PSL in Row 2 of Section 531 at the stadium or from the sideline, using pregame field passes given to him by Williams.
Every game, he sits up there, high above the corner of the end zone, snapping away like it’s his job. “I shoot every single play,” LeClair says. During last Sunday’s win over the Seattle Seahawks, he activated the shutter button 3,030 times.
“Anytime we go to the game, basically I’m going to the game myself,” Tina LeClair says. “I’m friends with everybody around me, so I talk to them, and then I talk to Pat after the game. I have to kind of sit sideways so that I don’t bump him when I jump up to scream.
“But he really, really, really enjoys it, and he is an awesome photographer.”
If you don’t want to take her word for it that he’s good, consider Exhibit A: any of the poster-size prints hanging on his wall, which look like they were taken by a professional.
If you don’t want to take our word for it, consider Exhibit B: This year, he says, his signed photos have raised more than $7,000 for the DeAngelo Williams Foundation, breast-cancer research and other charities; an autographed 16-by-20-inch print of Cam Newton went for $1,100 at a recent March of Dimes benefit. (LeClair says he’s never personally profited from his photography, or from players’ signatures.)
Souvenirs – for the players
And if you think, Oh, that’s just because they’re autographed, consider Exhibit C: The photographs he brings to open practice sessions to have signed are routinely, um, confiscated by players.
“I got a picture of where Cam flipped over (in the win over Houston Sept. 20), and when I brought it to him to sign, he’s like, ‘Man, I gotta have that,’ ” LeClair says. “He does that to me a lot, and I’m like, ‘Fine, hey, whatever. You can have whatever you want.’ ”
Linebacker Luke Kuechly, running back Jonathan Stewart, fullback Mike Tolbert and center Ryan Kalil – among others – have also asked for and received photos from LeClair.
“He’s a good dude,” Tolbert says. “I have some (of his photos) at home, and he’s been at a couple of my friends’ birthday parties taking pictures.” And Tolbert knows about LeClair’s man cave: “I heard he got a lot of stuff goin’ on in there.”
A room, and an arm, in progress
LeClair’s room, in fact, is a constant work in progress. He’s starting to add posters to the ceiling, but he’s completely out of floor space and table space and shelf space; so if he gets new souvenirs that he wants to display, something else needs to be tucked away to make room.
But one of his most prized possessions is something he always has on him: the elaborate tattoo that runs from the top of his left shoulder to the tip of his elbow and took more than 20 hours for an artist to create.
Currently, the tattoo combines a Panthers logo, a Panthers statue, the NFL shield, grass, a football and “EST 1995.” If his team can win two more games, he’ll be able to finish it off.
“I’m saving the rest of my arm,” LeClair says, “for the Lombardi Trophy.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 4:35 PM with the headline "There are Panthers superfans, and then there’s Pat LeClair."