NOTE: This is a guest post by good friend of IMB Pat Sebanc. You can get more insight from Pat by following him on Twitter, @PatrickRSebanc.
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Considering this is a guest post, I feel like I should introduce myself to some extent. I’m Pat Sebanc, I’m a college student and I love sports; that’s really all you need to know. I’ll probably reveal more about myself as time goes on, but I don’t want to bore you with a biography (despite the fact that it would be filled with awesome stories and mind-blowing factoids). So yeah, now I’m going to get to the main reason for this post.
People are literally crazy over sports, that’s nothing new. People are dedicated to their favorite teams and people will defend those teams to the death. That’s admirable and that’s what makes sports great, but an issue I see everyday with sports is that sometimes that dedication can be a little over-the-top. As soon as a team starts getting featured on Sportscenter or Twitter or wherever they can find publicity, you see people flocking to the fan section and becoming what most people call “fair weather fans”.
They’ve known about the team, or maybe they haven’t, but now they’re supporting them and cheering for them every game. Maybe it’s just through social networking, but I’ve noticed that fans tend to get annoyed when they see people rooting for their favorite team when they know they haven’t been lifelong fans.
To me, that’s just completely backwards; I mean why WOULDN’T you want someone rooting for you favorite team? Why WOULDN’T you want another person to converse about your favorite team with? Are people seriously regressing to the caveman era and becoming that territorial, and over a sports team? I just don’t get it. I personally am ecstatic when I find another person to talk about the Red Sox (best team ever by the way, no bias) with or when I can chat it up with another Indiana native about the Pacers or Colts. To me, communicating with other fans is the coolest thing about sports. To find someone who is just as passionate about a certain team, or even just a certain sport, is just a joy to me; I’ve made numerous friends just through sports (i.e. the creators of this blog).
Now I know there’s no way that this type of behavior is going to stop because nothing ever stops, it just goes under the radar. But I feel like people should just lay off and just enjoy sports. If you want to get technical, sports are just big games played by people ten times as talented as the average person.
One example I can give where people have gotten annoyed with a newly gained fan base is the recent adoration of IU basketball. I’ll be honest, I’m a lifelong Purdue fan, almost my entire family went to Purdue, I grew up rooting for Purdue and I’ll always root for the Boilermakers. But at the same time, I’ve never been a “hater” of IU, I’ve talked trash, I’ve rooted against them in the past, but I’ve never disliked them like a normal Purdue fan might.
To me, rooting for IU is just like rooting for Butler or Notre Dame; I support any and every team from the state of Indiana. Hell, I’d even support the Fort Wayne Mad Ants if it came down to it. I just love this state and everything about it. I was a huge fan of Bob Knight, I loved his style and I still do to this day. But after Knight left and Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson both had their respective eras at IU, I lost interest in the Hoosiers (as did a lot of people from the Hoosier state). But now that the Hoosiers are heading in a bright direction down the right path, you would think that people would embrace and encourage newfound support for a once struggling program; but in fact, I’m seeing a lot of the opposite.
I’m noticing some resentment, some anger, some frustration. As I said before, I just don’t get it. People are alienating and degrading people they should be supporting and welcoming. If one of my friends who happens to be a Yankees fan told me he was going to become a Red Sox fan, I would be happy for him. First, I’d heckle him and make countless jokes, but I wouldn’t be bitter that he became a Red Sox fan. I guess the point I’m trying to convey here is that, despite, when someone became a fan, how someone became a fan or even why someone became a fan, it shouldn’t matter. A fan is a fan, and that’s all that really should matter. If you’re a supporter of the same team as me, that’s great, I’m happy.
Now, I’m not trying to pick on IU, I mean I’m now a fan (I live in Bloomington, I basically have to [it’s not forced though, I’m truly becoming a supporter of Indiana University]). I’ve seen it in the NBA with the Pacers and I’ve seen in the NFL with numerous teams. People all over the country are just rabid with having too much pride to accept newfound fans and newfound interest. I guess I’m just noticing people don’t like when other people like the same things that they like. This kind of thing happens in music as well, people get peeved when their favorite underground artist gets on a commercial or gets a Grammy award (Bon Iver fans from 2007 have got to be PISSED!!!!).
With that being said, I’m going to conclude this with something for you guys to think about; are sports fans just gigantic hipsters who get infuriated when their team gets some form of recognition from the not-so-normal supporter? Thanks for reading and I hope to do this again. Have a good one, America.
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