Ah, March Madness is upon us, that magical time when we root for the underdog, stare at the TV for 8-hour increments, and gleefully steal company time. It’s the return of Selection Sunday, the Boss Button, and hordes of spittle-screaming fans everywhere. Stars will be born, dreams will be broken, and Luther Vandross will again become relevant for one night. And I will continue to beat to death the rule of three within my sentence structure. All is well.
As a card-carrying sports fan, I love March Madness, just as I love the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals. Heck, I even love Major League Baseball’s opening day, even if I don’t particularly care for the 8 ½ monotonous months of ballgames that follow. These sorts of sports moments are what we cherish. But even the best sporting events come packaged with sports fans, and as you may know, sports fans have a tendency to be the worst.
Sports fans in a nutshell: loud, obnoxious, delusional, drunk. To help understand my feelings on the matter, I’ll point to a passage from an earlier sports-related musing on this very website:
…every single fan base will annoy you if you get close enough to them. I live in Colorado, and Broncos fans annoy the hell out of me, but that’s only because they surround me and their team has given them something to be loud about. If you’re a fan of any team, you’re annoying too. I’m annoying. We all suck. It’s just how it works.
It’s often pointed out that the word “fan” is derived from “fanatic.” These are people who make large emotional, temporal, and often financial investments into grown men playing catch. People who metaphorically live and die with the fortunes of teams to which they have no connection – in contests in which they have no control. People who literally yell at the TV.
And I’m one of them. Despite recognizing the obvious shortcomings of our kind, being a sports fan is way too fun to quit. Have you tried yelling at the TV? It is thoroughly enjoyable. As are the ballgames themselves, as long as you keep things in perspective. So instead, I try to focus on being a better sports fan. Here’s how:
Cheer. But not like an asshole.
It’s a game. It’s supposed to be fun. Make it fun. Support your team, joke with your friends, but don’t be a dick. A little good-natured razzing is fine – even encouraged – but calling a rival fan just to remind them their team lost and yours won and IN YOUR FACE BEYOTCH!!! makes you an annoying person people probably don’t want to be around very much. Because even if your team DID win – and hey, congrats! – you had nothing to do with it. Nothing. Which reminds me…
Them or they. Not us or we.
You love your team. You root for your team. But you are not part of your team, no matter what the marketing department tells you. Please do not refer to the team as “we,” unless you are a player, coach, or member of the support staff*. Yes, you buy jerseys and attend games. This does not make you part of the organization. Do you refer to United Airlines as “we” every time you fly somewhere? Of course not.
*One caveat: college sports. If you’re an alum of a school, it’s ALLOWABLE to use the collective “we” when discussing that school’s teams. Borderline, but allowable. $60k in tuition and crippling student debt earns that privilege. And after all, you were once a member of the same student body from which said team gets its semi-professional players student athletes.
Do not make your fandom your identity.
“So, what do you like to do? What are your hobbies?”
“Well, I’m a really big Bills fan.”
First of all, I’m sorry. Second, no. Fandom is not a hobby. It’s not something you do. It’s observing other people do things. Be a fan by all means, but don’t only be a fan.
Last names are just fine.
I often see fans on the internet write things like “Willie just isn’t getting it done,” as if the starting power forward for Kentucky is a close friend with whom they are on a first-name basis. In sports, last names are the way to go. Or full names, or even nicknames. I admit, in fits of passion, more than once I’ve been guilty of uttering an “Adrian” or a “Ricky,” but I’m working on it.
It’s just a game.
You get one hour after a loss to be pissed. Three if it’s the playoffs, the rest of the day if it’s a championship. Bitch, tweet, rage-drink, etc., for this amount of time, then move on. No use in letting something over which you have no control affect your state of mind longer than that.
Why do we love watching people get angry? Watching them lose their shit? Witnessing them meltdown, raise their voice, and finally express just how pissed off they really are?