I choose these teams for two reasons. One, I'm a loyal fan. Two, watching the game is about much more than enjoyment. Granted, watching my team get crushed by the opposition is disappointing. Sometimes the crushing is so severe that we loyal fans are immortally wounded. Maybe even immorally wounded.
During these times we loyal fans remind ourselves that we must keep going forward. If we don't, our pre-purchased non-refundable season tickets, ten year's worth, will be wasted. We loyal fans will keep going to the games, leaving our embarrassed wives at home, with painted bare chests and gigantic foam hands. Honorably, we will always buy nachos and occasionally yell explicits.
My teams consist of great guys--fathers, husbands, community leaders, and Olympians. As a loyal fan, a true fan, I have the right to brag about these men. I will do this, when we win, by dancing in the street, dumping my drinks on your white shirt, hooting, hollering, littering, starting things of fire, waving my arms in the air, and requesting a plethora of high-fives. In other words, when we win—when we win—the team and I get to take full pride in our accomplishments. We deserve it. I especially deserve it, due to my extreme loyalty.
Loyally is the only way to support a sporting team. Fair-weather fans watch sports as if the game isn't important and hence will never have the satisfaction I get from watching the underdog come from behind late in the game and pull off the glorious victory, like when…
Well, enough reminiscing. But doesn't it sound fabulous? I've chosen the less-excellent team, so the next big win will make up for those get-rich-quick investments, for example, and all other bad choices I’ve made in life. Yes, sporting is about life.
In life, when the boss cuts your pay, makes you work the holidays, hits on your wife, and repeatedly unplugs your computer monitor, do you switch your loyalty and quit? Do you leave and work for the new boss who pays twice as much and who never touches your power cord or your wife?
No. A loyal fan never quits! We loyal fans know what it means to stand tall, to weather through oppression, to fight the good fight.
Fairweather fans: enjoy your snooty new office equipment and free health insurance. You should have been loyal like me, wearing my original autographed 1976 brown jersey on top of my green business suit and displaying old trading cards. But no, you had to be on the bandwagon, enjoying yourself.