The Goof on the Roof

Bird-Brain Raven Fan As Lame As His Team


The Jig Is Up for "Rooftop Ron" Stack, who bravely took time off from skittish employment to whore himself for publicity

First my girlfriend mentioned him, then my friend Scott "Unpainted" Huffines ("Huffines Has It!") e-mailed me about him, complaining about his lameness. The subject of all this buzz was an occassionally employed construction worker named Ron Stack (sic), who perched himself atop a Canton bar and vowed to stay there until either the Baltimore Ravens (currently on a 9-game losing streak) won a game or fired coach Brian Billick. And thus, in a dreadful football season in which there's little positive to talk about, the so-called "Goof on the Roof" became an overnight celebrity (but has he been on Marty Bass' show yet? That's the true test of Ravens dedication and celebrity.)

"He was no goof," Scott (pictured left) wrote. "It used to be you had to be on a roof for months! This dude was on the roof TWO DAYS and gets the front page of the Sun, expecting to be off the roof if we beat Miami. We lose, he gets stuck up there for like 2 weeks - He doesn't even stick it out til the end of the season on Sunday! He left Xmas day. He deserved to be arrested for just being a lameass. In the olden days you had to earn your cred."

Huffine's Has It!
Scott's complaint has merit, as the rooftop ordeal of "Ron Stack" (real name Ronald Stach) is hardly the stuff of Into the Wild "roughing it" proportions. Besides the media attention, it included such perks as a pup tent, two heaters, five meals a day and all the beer he could drink (and construction workers sure can drink!), courtesy of the not-publicity-adverse owner of the bar below, on whose roof he perched.

Stach's sacrifice certainly pales compared to previous sports-related vigils in this town, like the bartender who in 1991 perched himself on a Dundalk rooftop for 23 days to protest a feud between then-Orioles owner Eli Jacobs and then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer over the naming of our baseball stadium. Or compared to 98 Rock DJ Bob Rivers, who stayed on the air continuously for 11 days until the Baltimore Orioles ended their American League record-setting 0-21 losing skein at the start of the 1988 season.

Unlike those sports fan diehards, Stach's vigil wasn't all it was Stack-ed up to be. Though Rooftop Ron claimed to be a construction worker, everyone knows construction workers don't work in the Winter - that's why you'll find them drinking up a storm and sticking $5 bills in stripper's garter belts until the Spring rolls around. And then there was the matter of his name. This dumbass changed the spelling of his name, thinking that was enough to avoid being caught as Deadbeat Dad Ron Stach, the guy with outstanding warrants related to owing over $43,000 in back child support to a Dundalk woman. I love this line in Rosen's article: "He's also single, so no one at home is second-guessing his shenanigans."

Well, that Dundalk woman he had a child with, Kelly Strach, begs to differ. She got miffed from reading about the $500 in Ravens memorabilia Rooftop Ron purchased during his vigil.

Here's the full story from the Baltimore Sun (December 28, 2007):

Roof-bound Ravens fan a deadbeat, ex-wife says
by Gus G. Sentementes, Sun Reporter, December 28, 2007

With each interview that her former husband gave to television and newspapers about his obsession with the Baltimore Ravens, Kelly Stach's frstration grew.

For more than two weeks, the Dundalk woman stood on the sidelines as Ronald Stach - dubbed the "Goof on the Roof" - became a celebrity for camping out atop a Southeast Baltimore bar until the hometown football team snapped its losing streak.

Kelly Stach was determined to expose her former husband, a part-time construction orker, whom she calls a deadbeat dad.

"I just think it's horrible that everyone out there thought he was this geat supporter of the Ravens, and he hasn't supported his own kid in the last 18 years," Kelly Stach said in an interview yesterday.

On Wednesday, Kelly Stach said, she called Baltimore police to let them now that her former husband was wanted on a warrant for failing to appear in court in connection with a child support case, in which court ocuments say he owes her $34,465. That figure is as of 2004, and Kelly

Stach said the amount now is about $43,000.

Police didn't find the 41-year-old Stach on the roof - he came down on Christmas Day for unexplained reasons, according to the bar's owner - but arrested him at a house in Southeast Baltimore.

Police turned Stach over to Baltimore County police, who then handed him over to the county sheriff's department, which served the warrant on him, authorities said. Bail was set yesterday at $42,065, and he was expected to have a bail review today, according to a Baltimore County Detention Center official.

Stach perched on the roof of Canton Station at Conking and O'Donnell streets on Dec. 11, saying he was frustrated with the Ravens' losing ways. He quickly became a novelty in a city whose football team remains strapped in a spell of defeats.

He vowed to not come down until either the Ravens won a game, or coach
Brian Billick got fired. Neither has happened yet.

Bar staff and others visited him, took pictures with him and drank with him. The bar owner, Darren Petty, set him up with a tent, two heaters, five meals a day and all the beer he could drink.

"I tell you what: Any goof who wants to go on this roof, we're going to do a background check from now on," Petty said after learning about the charges yesterday.

Petty said he grew up with Stach in Highlandtown and knew him from the neighborhood.

Petty said he had no idea that Stach had had trouble with his former wife over child support payments. He was surprised to learn yesterday that Stach spelled his name differently than the way the media had published it - as "Stack."

Kelly Stach said she thought the misspelling was to deter reporters and others from reviewing his court record on the Internet.

Stach's presence was a publicity boon for the bar. Petty became accustomed to the sight of television reporters traipsing up to the roof with video cameras and microphones to hear Stach pontificate about the Ravens. A television news crew came from as far as Texas to interview Stach, he said.

"I'm trying to drum up support because a lot of fans are ticked off right now," Stach told a Sun reporter in mid-December.

Petty said he knew that Stach had a teenage son with another woman, but he didn't know about the 18-year-old son he had with Kelly Stach. He said the younger son - and his mother - had come by the bar on several occasions to spend time with Stach on the roof, with no problems.

Petty said he was saddened by Stach's arrest and said Kelly Stach had
called him on Wednesday to question him about her former husband.

After speaking with her, he said he called Stach and asked him about
the allegations, which he said Stach denied.

"He said, 'Darren, if I was in trouble, I'd never sit up on the roof
and have all this media attention,'" Petty said.

"He was probably getting treated up there better than he is now," Petty added. "He got five square meals up there. At the jail, he's probably only getting three."

Kelly Clayton married Ronald Stach in 1990, and they had a son together, she said. They split up when their son was about 7 months old. She said he left him because he refused to work. Warrants for his arrest had been issued three times in the 1990s, charging him with failing to show p in court for hearings on child support payments, Baltimore County court records show. He was sentenced to six months in jail in 1996 for contempt of court, records show.

The latest warrant was issued June 6, the records show. Warrants were also issued for him the previous two years charging him with owing another woman roughly $12,000 in child support payments for their 14-year-old son.

Kelly Stach said her son, who is now 18, is attending college full-time now, and has "huge, huge, huge" expenses.

That's why when she saw her former husband talking about how he had spent $500 on Ravens memorabilia and clothing, she said to herself in frustration: "He can pay all that money for Ravens stuff, but he can't pay $50 a week for child support?"

As Bill Ondine blogged for the Sun, other possible headlines for Stach's media blunder could be:

The bum who owes mum.

The jerk who should work

The dope who steals hope

The louse of the house

and

the fool on the stool

Related links:
"Ravens fan, on a roof, H-O-P-I-N-G" (Sun, 12-13-2007)
"O, by the way" (Bill Ondine, Sun, Decemeber 28, 2007)