For My More Diligent Readers: Fandom by Peter Bailey-Wells

          In professional sports, athletes frequently move between teams without care, and those who are faithful to teams are the ones who are the most celebrated. Interestingly enough, fans do not shop their support to the highest bidder. For such intense loyalty, it is surprising that athletes like Lebron James would just throw away the affections of an entire city, an entire state, just to “Take [his] talents to South Beach”. Fans will always rise and fall with the successes and failures of their teams. Boston fans are the prime example of this attitude, where, until the last decade, heartbreak was the name of the game. Now, in our modern era, sports are a huge business, wildly popular and with great emotional affects on the lives of even the most normal of citizens. Everyone is a sports fan. Everyone. Old people, young people, parents, college students, yuppies, rural farmers, and rich suburbanites all root for someone in some sport. However, since not everyone is the same, it stands to reason that there are several different kinds of sports fans. Since fandom ranges far and wide, if one is truly to understand sports, one must truly examine all types of fan. Seeing as I am the kind of person who seeks the true understanding of sports, it stands to reason that I would like to examine all kinds of fans.
        First of all, lets look at younger people (ages 0-40) as fans. Young people as fans usually fall into four categories: the Obsessive, the Unfortunate, the Bandwagon, and the Moderate. The Obsessive are 90% male, often between the ages of 10-30 who would rather watch the game than go out with a girlfriend, who are never without at least 4 fantasy football teams at once, who only talk about what they saw on Sports Center, and who spend considerable amounts of time alienating the people around him. The 10% of females who fall under this category are prime girlfriend targets for other Obsessives, because of their willingness to watch the game WITH their Obsessive boyfriend rather than go out to dinner. The Obsessives usually go on to become the Neurotic or the Nostalgic, but we will get to that later. Secondly we have the Unfortunate, who are the sad individuals who claim to have no interest in any sports whatsoever, and say dumb things like “I only watch the Super Bowl for the ads and the halftime show” or “I only watch The Masters to see the beautiful scenery”. These people have no place in my universe. Next we have the Bandwagon fan, the kind of people who pop up and root hardcore for some person/team/story but do not care otherwise what happens. This group is compiled of two different sub-groups. First, there are the squealers, primarily females who root for a team because of the physical beauty of one of the participants. This also applies to males, (see Alex Morgan, US soccer player), but primarily applies to females who celebrate the likes of Jacoby Ellsbury, Tom Brady, David Beckham, Christiano Ronaldo, etc. Next up are the fans that follow sensational stories. Examples of these are Linsanity, Tebowmania, or Jimmer-Time. These people disgust me. It is ok to have an opinion about them, and its fine to root for them, but to pop up and all of a sudden be the biggest fan on the planet is an annoyance to those of us who truly are Obsessives. Finally in our list of younger fans, we have the Moderates, compiling a majority of fans. Most people fall into this category because they root for teams, but do not live and die by them. Unlike Obsessives, they do not require an IV drip when their team gets knocked out of the playoffs, but unlike the Bandwagons, they have a consistent interest in a team or individual. These fans are respected by all, even if the Obsessives sometimes get upset about their lack of tears the day after a loss.
         Next we come to older fans (40-99), which have some crossover with younger ones, especially where Obsessives are concerned, but for the most part divide themselves into four categories; Nostalgic, Neurotic, Ignorant and Complacent. First are the Nostalgics, who spend a major amount of their time saying things like “Oh I remember watching [generic sports star from 20+ years ago] play, [he/she] was incredible. There will just never be anyone like that again”. My dad falls under this category. He is not much of a sports fan, but grew up in Houston, and often laments the fact that the Houston Oilers no longer exist. The second class of older fans is the Nuerotics. These are usually Obsessives who are so far over the edge that they have become mentally unstable and/or totally rejected sports. In the first case, they are socially outcast, and spend all their time watching sports and mumbling about horrible trades made 30 years in the past. In the second case, they try at all costs to avoid any sports because of the deep emotional wounds that they suffered at the hands of their teams. Next we have Ignorant fans, which usually are just aged Unfortunate or Bandwagon fans that are totally disinterested. I have real pity for these folks. Moving on… The final group of fans is the Complacent, which is the most diverse group of older fans. They could include anyone from the Obsessives, Bandwagons, or Moderates and have an interesting disposition. For example, my Grandmother would be considered a Complacent, now into her seventies. She is a die-hard Boston fan and also roots for her hometown of Detriot and the University of Michigan, but her style of observation is interesting. I can engage her in a conversation about who the Sox just signed, or the winning streak that the Tigers are on and she’ll listen intently and discuss it but will have had no prior knowledge of either. Additionally, she will watch the Celtics with a newspaper in front of her, and when it gets to the last two minutes, she will put the paper down and root as intensely as I (a self-professed Obsessive).
         While sports are a dividing agent, they also bring us all together and despite the differences that I may have with other fans, we mostly get along amicably. After all, sports are all about unity and fun, and when it comes down to it, they are only games.

Ok. Who am I kidding? I hate Yankee fans. They deserve a punch to the gut. 

PBW- http://billsimmonsjr.blogspot.com/