The lore and legacy of the Timberwolves superfan ‘Jiggly Boy’

Timberwolves fans best recognize John Sweeney topless.

For more than 20 years, his persona known as “Jiggly Boy” made him a superfan favorite during Kevin Garnett’s reign with the team. It all started in 2004 when the Wolves first competed in the Western Conference finals. Sweeney appeared on the Jumbotron at Target Center dancing, then ripped his shirt off to reveal “KG” written in black marker across his hairy stomach.

It was a stunt from a professional actor, coordinated with the team. And it worked. His belly came to define his legacy. A Minnesota Star Tribune reporter covering the Wolves dubbed Sweeney “Jiggly Boy,” describing him as a “beefy, overly enthusiastic super fan with happy feet and an exhibitionist streak.” His physique hasn’t changed much since.

Sweeney was back in Target Center on Saturday for an electric Game 3 of the conference finals when the Wolves beat Oklahoma City 143-101. Sweeney waved to the Jumbotron, this time keeping his top on.

“I don’t take my shirt off every single game,” Sweeney said in a recent interview. “But I do try to cheer as hard as I can, and I do try to encourage others to have as much joy and fun as they can because, God, it’s a special place when they go on a run and everybody’s happy and you’re feeling that the team can’t miss.”

Jiggly Boy emerged from the team’s decision to approach Sweeney, who used to own Brave New Workshop, the oldest sketch comedy theater in the United States. They were looking for “really fun game elements,” said Jeff Munneke, vice president of fan experience for the Wolves and Lynx.

One idea was to put someone in a nun costume in the stands to perform for the kiss cam. The one that stuck was Sweeney’s bare-chested routine.

The bit involved actors playing security guards who escorted Sweeney out after the shirtless performance. But Munneke said they quickly realized their plan had a problem.

“People are outraged that Jiggly Boy has just been removed from the game,” he remembers telling staff. The fans didn’t know Sweeney was actually up in a suite watching the game. They quickly had to improvise.

“We bring him back to his seat and the place goes crazy. Absolutely crazy,” he said. “Hence, Jiggly Boy was born.”

For years, clips of Sweeney’s show was featured in NBA commercials when hype surrounded KG and the Wolves. To this day, some fans still don’t know it was all staged.

“We’re in the business of first impressions and lasting impressions,” he said, “and obviously John is a big part of our history.”

In 2015, KG returned to Target Center. Accompanied by his two young sons, Sweeney ripped open his shirt to reveal the message, “Welcome Home.”

KG looked up in the stands as the crowd went wild. He smiled and waved to Jiggly Boy.

“It was very serendipitous that he even saw me,” Sweeney said. “It’s joyful. And that was the whole origin. … I’m just a dork who danced with his shirt off.”

Despite the decades of suffering that followed for fans after KG left, Jiggly Boy only grew in popularity. Not at home in Minnesota but overseas in China.

On his first visit there in March, Sweeney needed security for crowds of swarming fans. He spent five hours taking selfies with them.

The NBA in China has been promoting Jiggly Boy in the intro video for NBA games the past 12 years.

“So anytime you watched a game, you know, welcome to NBA, there would be me and the boys dancing,” he said.

Fans affectionately gave him the name “Dancing Uncle of the Wolf King” (“Wolf King” is the name they gave KG). Because of Garnett‘s fandom abroad, Jiggly Boy, too, found a cult following. He still can’t believe it.

“It was odd, because for 22 years, I‘ve had a life in China as this character, and everyone knows me,” Sweeney said.

For him, Jiggly Boy represents unabashed support of the team you love that makes everyone smile. Sweeney said you will never see him shouting at refs or complaining about a call.

Sweeney wants fans to “take all of your available energy in a positive way for the team, and don’t waste any of your tank on complaining or despairing the other team,” he said. “I think we would win more games.”

“I watched the confidence in which you know Ant will shoot when he’s on a run, when the team‘s behind him, when the crowd’s behind him.”

He thinks back to his time growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and seeing dedicated fans cheering at Lambeau Field. They were often intoxicated, and shirtless. No matter how often the Packers lost, he said the stadium always sold out to a roaring crowd.

Those moments played into the character development of Jiggly Boy. Except Sweeney is 30 years sober. You won’t catch him chugging a beer on the Jumbotron, like so many fans are seen doing when the camera cuts to them.

Sweeney sold the Workshop in 2020 after owning it for 25 years. Sweeney now lives on a cattle ranch in Wyoming and has a busy public speaking career while also sharing Wolves content on RedNote, the Chinese social media equivalent to TikTok. He’s attracted 300,000 new followers in the past three months.

Sweeney is planning a monthlong trip to China in August in partnership with the NBA and Adidas. His sons studied Chinese in high school, so he has two translators handy.

When he was there earlier this year, he got a tattoo in Beijing on his wrist that symbolizes the loyalty of Timberwolves fans who are far from fair-weather fans.

“The dawn invites false followers, but the dusk welcomes true believers,” his tattoo reads. He said some of the fans in China thought the KG on his stomach was a tattoo, too.

He hopes his return visit to China is enhanced by the Wolves advancing in the finals, or taking home their first title.

“The town deserves some joy and some celebration and some recognition about what’s great about this place, because it has been a tough five years,” he said. “To think there could be a NBA championship parade on Hennepin … it’s just an exponential version of what I’m hoping to do every time I cheer at the games.”