Sports

One of the things that has long perplexed my allegedly rational mind was the way sports fans looked upon team loyalties. Most people root for their home team, or the team representing their local college. If there are multiple teams in one area, however, things can get interesting! When a sports fan moves to another city, their loyalties go with them - even thousands of miles away. To use a hometown example, a Nebraska football supporter will still cheer for the Huskers even after moving to Texas, California or North Carolina. But a strange thing happens when die-hard fans encounter people who have moved from elsewhere into their city: the outsiders are expected to jettison their out-of-town fandom and become cheerleaders for the local team. No one seems to notice this inconsistency.

Another item on my "sports fans mystify me" list is the fact that it is socially unacceptable to not be a fan. I encountered this the other day. A man whom I had never met asked me if I "was going to watch the game". Besides growing up in another state and not having absorbed the local football fever and fervor, I'm just, in general, not a sports fan any more. There are several reasons for this, none of them particularly earth-shaking, but I just don't care about sports any more. Well, I replied to this stranger with "No, I'm not a fan". You would've thought that I had impugned his mother's reputation or shot his dog. Some years back I turned off a game at work because people weren't working, and ended up getting an ugly phone call from a customer threatening to shop somewhere else if the game wasn't on the radio at the store because I "was in Nebraska now".

Now I do understand the attraction and the fun of rooting for your team. I get that tailgating on game day and attending the game itself are fun experiences (I've done both). There's no harm in memorizing team statistics or expressing your opinion about the coach or players. (Yes, even college players - if they can accept the adulation and hero-worship when things are going well, they can accept the criticism when things are going badly - and no, the fact that you yourself cannot perform at that level of athleticism should not prevent you from venting about shitty football). What I don't understand is when fandom (and I'm not just pointing fingers at Nebraska football fans, I'm sure that in Texas, fanaticism begins at the high school level, or younger) becomes the most important thing in a person's life. I've worked with people who, without a second thought, would have quit their jobs if forced to work on a "Football Saturday".

Being from somewhere else does not preclude me from understanding why people are sports fans; guess what? We had sports fans where I came from too. Whether your team is Husker Football, or Creighton Basketball or the Chicago Cubs, you're not unique! There are sports fans everywhere and they're all similarly crazed in their support of their team. There are also plenty of us who just don't give a shit.