Be a Fan, Not an Idiot.

     The New York Jets were my first favorite professional sports team, just to get that out of the way.  That may be shocking to those that have known me as a die hard San Francisco 49ers fan, but hold up a minute; I was probably about 5 years old, and hadn't quite grasped what football was.  All I knew was that I loved planes, and that was pretty much the only deciding factor in choosing where my loyalty went.  It probably helped that the NFL Huddles (cartoon versions of the NFL mascots made with the intention of drawing in children) and related merchandise hooked me like the materialistic little bastard I was.

Probably a better quarterback choice than Mark Sanchez

     That little guy flew into my life and came in for a landing right in my heart.  The Huddles were the stars of four NFL children's books about teamwork and fair play, which is an important thing to teach a kid so that he doesn't drop kick people during a regional Spelling Bee (by the way, I am so sorry, Brandon).  My love for everything crimson and gold didn't come until I had actually been informed that there was more to football than that, and realized that when I played, I enjoyed making those difficult catches the most, so naturally I gravitated towards the greatest wide receiver, Jerry Rice.  As a matter of fact, not a single favorite sports team of mine wasn't influenced by basically clever marketing.  Remember Starting Lineup figures?

They aren't dolls, they are action figures

     That is Darryl Strawberry, my first out of many Starting Lineup figures. See, I liked the Mets at the time, because this fellow was my first sports figure, the orange and blue color scheme was pleasing to my eyes, and if I used it during one of the freestyle rap battles about my favorite teams I was fond of when I was 8 years old, I could easily rhyme it with Jets. This guy was followed up shortly by two Jets figures, a St. Louis Cardinals figure, and then 49ers and Cubs figures. So you can see, I already had a fondness for random members of teams before I actually chose a favorite.  

     Eventually, as stated, I actually learned what these sports were and chose my respective favorite teams. Growing up in North Dakota, I didn't feel any obligation to a local team outside of college sports, so I had the luxury of picking whichever team I wanted - 49ers, Cubs, and Calgary Flames for hockey. But I wasn't quite a fanatic about those teams, just about the sport. Why? Because in my still developing mind, all of these athletes were doing amazing things, and carrying on legacies set years before they were even born, so that was enough to captivate me. It also helped that while my father and brother had their favorite teams, they were both fans of the sports themselves.  It was easy to find random teams' baseball caps lying around the house, or my brother collecting as many players' cards as he could just to get them all. Needless to say, I took notice. I loved the game, but I also loved the colors, the sounds, and the feeling you get when you are surrounded by thousands of fans, feeling the tension and excitement that come along with watching two rival teams go head to head. There was nothing like it, and it was something I could do with the other men in my family, so you could say it was almost a rite of passage.  

Whatever the opposite of this was, I was that

     Eventually, as children tend to do, I became an older child, and by that I mean a teenager. New first world problems and all to deal with, along with some of the old ones, like wetting the bed (that's normal, right?). Some of those problems included every single sports team that wasn't the one I was rooting for. I found myself hating Minnesota fans, because I was surrounded by them, and they were just as belligerent as I was. Probably more so, because what kind of person paints themselves purple, wears a horned hat and braids their hair?

Not, uh, not this guy.  I was talking about...some other, smaller guy.

     I did a complete turnaround. I was so focused on hating everyone else, I couldn't actually enjoy the game unless my team beat all others by 255 points or more, went to their houses and kicked their pets, and took over a small country. Incidentally, this is also around the time I noticed that my teams were performing increasingly worse. Coincidence? Of course, but it was ironic at the least. I didn't really let it affect the rest of my life, I mean, at least with the Cubs I was used to all of the losing, but I would still act like a typical trash talking idiot during the games. The worst part? There were a lot of great teams that I was either ignoring or spending way too much time hating, and even more great players and fans that were undeserving of that hostility.  

     Unfortunately, I played that role for much longer than I would like to admit. I can't quite recall if there was any one thing that helped me let go of that animosity, but I do know that remembering my love of the game helped a lot. It was the little things at first, like applauding when a receiver made a great catch or seeing a forward juke a goalie out of his mind with the puck, and eventually grew from there. It was only a few days ago I thought about buying a Baltimore Orioles hat in memory of one of my favorite baseball players (remembering all fo the cards I had of him), that of Cal Ripken Jr. It's such a relief when you realize that hating other teams doesn't make you a fan, it just makes you a jerk. That is what bothers me so much about fans these days: people in crowds have moved on from just yelling and cursing, to fighting, stabbing and shooting. That is indicative of a larger problem with society, and it should be kept off the field/arena/court/wherever. It is just a game, and has little to no bearing on your life. Sure, a little ribbing around the water cooler or at the bar is expected. I often have a little fun at my father's or brother's expense when my Niners beat their teams, usually followed by "I'm just kidding, it was a good game," not "I  hope your team dies in a horrible steel mill accident and they come back as ghosts and play death metal while you are trying to sleep." I don't say things like that because every athlete on that field is trying to do great things, and they have earned their position just as much as anyone on my teams. Also, I like to be civil to other fans, because every time I watch a game now, I get the same feeling I did when I was a growing up. I enjoy the sights, the sounds, the colors, the feeling of being surrounded by thousands of fans, and the tension and excitement that comes along with two rival teams going head to head. I remember that it makes me feel like a kid, as it should for other fans and athletes, and kids aren't belligerent fans. After all, it is just a game.