Just read Shanoff's good piece on his becoming a Gators fan through courting his wife, and it got me thinking about all kinds of stuff. He presents a couple ideas:
1) Actively becoming a fan of a given team is different (and he implies better) than passively doing so.
Active meaning that as an adult, you survey all the teams, and pick one that suits your personal values. By this logic, Winslow would be the biggest Calgary fan in the world. For example, sabermetrician-in-training Jesse Willard might decide that no matter how much he's been through with the M's over the year, he's goddamn sick of watching Sexson strike out, and hop over to the A's, or the Sox, or any other more sabermetrically-driven team. And while it's shitting on his childhood, it does represent mature moral thinking.
Passive meaning that if you're a Sox fan who grew up in New England, you never really had a choice, and your allegiance to Red Sox Nation is an accident of birth. Much like surviving the Holocaust. Hey-O!
Likewise, if you root for your Dad's team, it was a result of that, and while it may have made for great bonding experiences, again, you never really chose that team on its merits alone.
Finally, if you root for your alma mater, its cause by chance you went there, and you could just as easily have wound up somewhere else.
I like how he breaks down the major reasons people choose their fan loyalties. That said, he missed at least one - choosing a team cause it has one or more players that you like, and may have come to like through mature reasoning. So while rooting for the Bulls cause they had Jordan is maybe bandwagoneering, rooting for Jordan cause he was the best, most competitive, and hardest working man in the business isn't. And thus, the argument can be made that rooting for the Bulls wasn't simple bandwagoneering, but rather a reflection of your personal values.
In addition, I really think that he sells short the notion of loyalty to your alma mater. For most people, the college sports fan experience is the closest you'll ever get to the game, and that, coupled with the timing of college in most folks' emotional and moral development makes for a powerful force, that goes WAY beyond where you happened to get accepted.
2) Judging each other's reasoning behind their fan loyalties is gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
I agree for the most part with this point, but do think that being judgemental is understandable, given the deep sense of ownership fans have over their team. Someone hopping aboard the ship for a reason other than yours is threatening.
Sooo....
Let's apply his framework and analyze one man's fan loyalties, and see if it helps figure out: 1) why I root for the teams I do; and 2) whether I am indeed a pussy.
NBA - Knicks: Applying the Jordan reasoning above, that "the argument can be made that rooting for the Bulls wasn't simple bandwagoneering, but rather a reflection of your personal values", we can see that, in rooting for the 1990s Knicks, I valued cheap shot thugs (Oakley, my all-time favorite player), uppity little bitches (John Starks), whiny self-important fans (Spike Lee), and nothing less than the destruction of watchable basketball (Riley/Van Gundy). Yikes. I have some serious negative Karma for this one. At the same time, my allegiance was definitely rooted in sense of place - the Knicks are so central to New York city, and Madison Square Garden is a physical representation of their centrality to NYC, and of NYC's centrality in the world. As a kid from the burbs, traveling into the city was fascinating, magical, and, yes, a bit threatening, in a very good way. Everything was writ large, everything giant, and entering Madison Square to watch giants do battle will always be my primary memory of youth spent in the city - whether those giants were on skates, in the ring, or on the court.
MLB - Yankees: This one fits pretty clearly into the category of geography, and was facilitated by their history of winning. Two of my first words apparently were "Reggie Jackson", which, as with the Oakman above, doesn't really speak well for my personal values. But rather than have my fan loyalty buttressed by constant winning, the way that the younger generation of Yankees fans have, my youth was marked by perennial second place, perennial hope, perennial expectation (yes, reinforced by the tales of their past glory), and perennial disappointment. I waited my whole childhood to see Donnie Baseball in the playoffs, enduring countless preening asshat Mets fans along the way, and by the time he got there, in 1995, he was a shell of his former self: broken, hobbled, yet still magnificent, even in defeat (fuck you Edgar). Which leads us to...
NFL - Broncos: This one began because I really, really like Ed McCaffery, and John Elway. I liked McCaffery for his toughness, and lack of ego, and I suppose I liked Elway for three reasons: 1) Like Donnie Baseball, he had never won the big one; 2) he was an awesome videogame QB, and cause the Broncs never won the super bowl, you could take them and not be called a pussy; and 3) his awesome horse face. The more I watched them, the more I also fell in love with Elam and young Ian Gold. I'll be the first to point out that I never would have come to adopt them were it not for the influences of friends (namely, Andrew and Lawler). Those frienships made watching football fun for the first time in my life, having spent my childhood HATING weekend TV cause all there was was stupid football. Having fun is a powerful motivator. I kept watching, and found more in the team to like. Of course, then they won two superbowls, which was fucking awesome, and while it forever brands me a bandwagoneer due to the timing of the thing, I really do think that I would have stuck with them regardless.
NHL - Rangers: Two words: Mark Messier. Two more: Brian Leetch.
NCAA BBall - Duke: I have no excuse, and it haunts me. If you'll excuse me, I have to go cut myself. "I focus on the pain/The only thing that's real/The needle tears a hold/The old familiar sting". (slightly NSFW).
Side note - I find myself being drawn into fan-in-lawship, as the fiance is a fierce Eagles and Phillies fan. I justify this consciously by saying that they are NFC and NL teams, so don't directly conflict with my primary teams. Aside from loving my mate, and wanting to see her happy, I think these emerging loyalties are due to loving Citizen's Bank Ballpark, and loving the parking lot tailgate scene at Eagles games. I wonder how this will evolve.
1) Actively becoming a fan of a given team is different (and he implies better) than passively doing so.
Active meaning that as an adult, you survey all the teams, and pick one that suits your personal values. By this logic, Winslow would be the biggest Calgary fan in the world. For example, sabermetrician-in-training Jesse Willard might decide that no matter how much he's been through with the M's over the year, he's goddamn sick of watching Sexson strike out, and hop over to the A's, or the Sox, or any other more sabermetrically-driven team. And while it's shitting on his childhood, it does represent mature moral thinking.
Passive meaning that if you're a Sox fan who grew up in New England, you never really had a choice, and your allegiance to Red Sox Nation is an accident of birth. Much like surviving the Holocaust. Hey-O!
Likewise, if you root for your Dad's team, it was a result of that, and while it may have made for great bonding experiences, again, you never really chose that team on its merits alone.
Finally, if you root for your alma mater, its cause by chance you went there, and you could just as easily have wound up somewhere else.
I like how he breaks down the major reasons people choose their fan loyalties. That said, he missed at least one - choosing a team cause it has one or more players that you like, and may have come to like through mature reasoning. So while rooting for the Bulls cause they had Jordan is maybe bandwagoneering, rooting for Jordan cause he was the best, most competitive, and hardest working man in the business isn't. And thus, the argument can be made that rooting for the Bulls wasn't simple bandwagoneering, but rather a reflection of your personal values.
In addition, I really think that he sells short the notion of loyalty to your alma mater. For most people, the college sports fan experience is the closest you'll ever get to the game, and that, coupled with the timing of college in most folks' emotional and moral development makes for a powerful force, that goes WAY beyond where you happened to get accepted.
2) Judging each other's reasoning behind their fan loyalties is gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
I agree for the most part with this point, but do think that being judgemental is understandable, given the deep sense of ownership fans have over their team. Someone hopping aboard the ship for a reason other than yours is threatening.
Sooo....
Let's apply his framework and analyze one man's fan loyalties, and see if it helps figure out: 1) why I root for the teams I do; and 2) whether I am indeed a pussy.
NBA - Knicks: Applying the Jordan reasoning above, that "the argument can be made that rooting for the Bulls wasn't simple bandwagoneering, but rather a reflection of your personal values", we can see that, in rooting for the 1990s Knicks, I valued cheap shot thugs (Oakley, my all-time favorite player), uppity little bitches (John Starks), whiny self-important fans (Spike Lee), and nothing less than the destruction of watchable basketball (Riley/Van Gundy). Yikes. I have some serious negative Karma for this one. At the same time, my allegiance was definitely rooted in sense of place - the Knicks are so central to New York city, and Madison Square Garden is a physical representation of their centrality to NYC, and of NYC's centrality in the world. As a kid from the burbs, traveling into the city was fascinating, magical, and, yes, a bit threatening, in a very good way. Everything was writ large, everything giant, and entering Madison Square to watch giants do battle will always be my primary memory of youth spent in the city - whether those giants were on skates, in the ring, or on the court.
MLB - Yankees: This one fits pretty clearly into the category of geography, and was facilitated by their history of winning. Two of my first words apparently were "Reggie Jackson", which, as with the Oakman above, doesn't really speak well for my personal values. But rather than have my fan loyalty buttressed by constant winning, the way that the younger generation of Yankees fans have, my youth was marked by perennial second place, perennial hope, perennial expectation (yes, reinforced by the tales of their past glory), and perennial disappointment. I waited my whole childhood to see Donnie Baseball in the playoffs, enduring countless preening asshat Mets fans along the way, and by the time he got there, in 1995, he was a shell of his former self: broken, hobbled, yet still magnificent, even in defeat (fuck you Edgar). Which leads us to...
NFL - Broncos: This one began because I really, really like Ed McCaffery, and John Elway. I liked McCaffery for his toughness, and lack of ego, and I suppose I liked Elway for three reasons: 1) Like Donnie Baseball, he had never won the big one; 2) he was an awesome videogame QB, and cause the Broncs never won the super bowl, you could take them and not be called a pussy; and 3) his awesome horse face. The more I watched them, the more I also fell in love with Elam and young Ian Gold. I'll be the first to point out that I never would have come to adopt them were it not for the influences of friends (namely, Andrew and Lawler). Those frienships made watching football fun for the first time in my life, having spent my childhood HATING weekend TV cause all there was was stupid football. Having fun is a powerful motivator. I kept watching, and found more in the team to like. Of course, then they won two superbowls, which was fucking awesome, and while it forever brands me a bandwagoneer due to the timing of the thing, I really do think that I would have stuck with them regardless.
NHL - Rangers: Two words: Mark Messier. Two more: Brian Leetch.
NCAA BBall - Duke: I have no excuse, and it haunts me. If you'll excuse me, I have to go cut myself. "I focus on the pain/The only thing that's real/The needle tears a hold/The old familiar sting". (slightly NSFW).
Side note - I find myself being drawn into fan-in-lawship, as the fiance is a fierce Eagles and Phillies fan. I justify this consciously by saying that they are NFC and NL teams, so don't directly conflict with my primary teams. Aside from loving my mate, and wanting to see her happy, I think these emerging loyalties are due to loving Citizen's Bank Ballpark, and loving the parking lot tailgate scene at Eagles games. I wonder how this will evolve.
Labels: fandom, homerism, i am the Oakman googookachoo, stuff no one wants to read about but me
posted by Alex at
9:42 AM
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3 comments
