Homage to Elite Fans

Reading the article posted a week ago about fair-weather fans and the several comments posted has inspired me to write this. Ok, so here is the thing. I do not claim to know what it is to be a true fan. But I do think there is a common etiquette when it comes to being a fan. Ie Think of it as unwritten rule if you ever decide to enter such a world. I mean, when you enter a place that sells Gelato, it is pretty common knowledge to take two free samples, three at most. Or if you are walking around your house at the middle of the night…tip toe. It is just something I ALWAYS thought was fairly easy to follow when being a sports fan…ROOT FOR ONE CITY when picking teams for better or for worse. It is not rocket science. Obviously there are addendums to such a rule like rooting for a team you were born from. But having what I like to call the Billy Crystal syndrome is not cool. His apparent love for both the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Clippers are unparallel.

Think of being a fan as being in a marriage. Don’t sleep with other people! Simplest example: If you are a Boston Redsox Fan, don’t root for the Yankees. Is that hard? If you are a Los Angeles Laker fan, how do you have any business rooting for the Green Bay Packers? What ties do you have at all with such a team? Yes their jerseys are quite nice, and Bret Favre (who is fake pretending retirement) is quite the model athlete, but are those your only reasons for rooting for them. Rooting for the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Giants, Boston Redsox, and Kansas might be quite fun but do not approach “true” fans of the sport and state your case for why Kobe Bryant is so amazing. Or how you knew Eli Manning is a better player than Tom Brady. Or tell me how monster like a season Manny Ramirez will have in his contract year. Bitter am I? Of course. I toil along loyally to the Dodgers and Seattle Supersonics (where I was born). I think the college fan structure is still the only pure structure possible. Simple: If you went to UCLA, root for the UCLA basketball, football, lacrosse and whatever other sport that is Bruin-oriented. But I doubt such fans will be ok with you rooting for the UCLA b-ball team, and then loving Trojan Football. Thus if you would like to post how elitist such comments might be. Go ahead. Yes, Hi…I am an elitist sports fan. I like to root for the teams in my city or go to college to no matter their amount of championship banners.

And surely make this for better or (and most importantly) for worse. Being a fan is not like being devoted to a particular genre of music. You are not ostracized for your lack of knowledge. For the type of clothing you have when you attend a sporting event. I think the rules of being a sports fan is VERY easy. You don’t have to attend every home game to follow this rule. You don’t have to be able to recite every lottery pick up possible. You don’t even have to be able to name everyone on the roster (much less the starting line up). All you have to do is…wait for it…wait for it… root for the team you live in or were born from for better or for worse.

Is that so difficult? Think of being a fan as a marriage. There are unwritten rules when you are married that everyone follows. Ie you won’t sleep with someone else just because they happen to be a little bit more appealing at the time.

From Around the Blogs:
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8th graders playing in Kentucky? What? [Sports Agent Blog]