The definitive guide on how to behave
when the team you've followed for 15% of the season wins it all.
Before I begin, allow me to
congratulate my hometown Baltimore Ravens on an amazing, thrilling, improbable
playoff run that culminated in a Super Bowl XLVII victory. This was a
team who blah blah blah destiny...blah blah blah Rahim
Moore...blah blah blah Flacco...blah blah blah last
ride...blah blah blah deer antler spray...blah blah blah Harbowl...blah
blah blah blackout...blah blah blah no weapon...blah
blah blah Puppy Bowl...blah blah blah pass interference...blah
blah blah Illuminati...
Great job on an incredible season. Now,
if you'll excuse me, there are more pressing matters to tend to.
I'm an atypical Ravens fan. I'm
not a die-hard, nor fair-weather, nor even a casual fan. I like to call
myself a "Dress-Down Friday Fan", essentially a shade below casual. The
team's activity is really only important to me once a week, I give them no
special consideration outside of game days, and if I miss something, I'm more
than fine with catching it the following week, if at all. Quite
honestly, on game days, I'm pretty apathetic toward their performance. If
they win, I'm satisfied (...depending on the fan reaction. More on that
later.), and if they lose, I'm not going to eat a gallon of ice cream to ease
the pain.
Three factors contribute to my Ravens
indifference. The first is the sport of football's ranking within my
personal sports hierarchy (hint: it's battling hockey for last place).
The second factor is the brevity of the Ravens' existence within the context of
my life. When Ray & Co. danced into town, I was a 15 year-old high
school sophomore whose only connection to football was "Techmo Bowl" and "Joe Montana's Sports Talk Football".
Baseball was my first sports love and I had recently been introduced to
basketball - my true love. The Certified
Pre-Owned Cleveland Browns Baltimore Ravens were fighting for the
precious little real estate within my still-developing sports heart. As
it stands, I root for them by default; after all, they're the hometown team and
I'm obligated to have at least a modicum of interest...but I'll never love them
like the Orioles.
Lastly - and this one is a
significant one - I don't care for the majority of Ravens fans. I'll do
you a solid and save my reasons why for another post (possibly sometime early
next season when the fans will be downright insufferable). What's
interesting about this is that it keeps me from being a "real" fan. I
was far more openly supportive of the team when I lived in Philadelphia and
Atlanta (two cities on polar opposite ends of the "fandom" scale, I
might add). Being back in Baltimore, amongst the entitled, whiny,
over-zealous herd creates a disconnect that I haven't been able to shake. I
find it difficult, if not impossible to openly root for the Ravens outside of
the private confines of my home. Full disclosure: I've actually hoped
they'd lose certain games at times just to drag the fan base
back to some semblance of sports reality.
I say all this to preface my main
reason for writing this piece. As a real Dress-Down
Friday Fan, I feel it important to maintain a set of rules and guidelines
that people of my rooting ilk should follow - specifically in the immediate
afterglow of your team's championship run. It is imperative to set a
standard of behavior to prevent us DDFF's from becoming those fans.
This list is far from comprehensive, but I feel it's a start:
As a Dress-Down
Friday Fan...
- You are allowed to go out and celebrate, climb poles, get drunk, tip
stuff over, and set random things/people on fire immediately after your team
wins its sport's respective championship. Your level of fandom, or
lack thereof, is mutually exclusive from your status as a moron.
- You are
not allowed to
use the collective "we" to describe your team. E.g., Ray Lewis
is allowed to use "we" to describe his team. You are
allowed to use the collective "we" to describe your 0-8 company
softball team.
- You are not allowed to suddenly run out and buy every article of team
paraphernalia you see on the street now that your team has won the
championship. Trust me on this one. It'll be buried in the bottom
of a closet in no time. A few years later, it will emerge looking like this:
 |
| Just leave it hanging in the closet for the next 10-15 years and those wrinkles will fall right out. |
You are allowed to attend the victory parade, but don't be an asshole
about it. Dress normally; sport your team's colors if you must. But
do not wear your team's skully, scarf, coat, gloves, cell phone case, camo
pants, nipple rings, socks, and boxers - especially since you probably
just bought them all 3 days prior (refer to the prior bullet point). And
most importantly…
You are not allowed to
talk trash to true fans of the losing team. This is
douchebaggery of the highest order. You have not made the same emotional
investment in, nor sacrifices for your team that
they have with theirs. There's nothing worse than a mouthy, braggart "fan"
armed with little more than a basic working knowledge of their team. (Shout
out to 80% of Miami Heat "fans" out there.) When presented the
opportunity, politely congratulate your vanquished foe on a game well played,
tip your proverbial cap (so long as it's not the cap with your team's logo on
it that you bought from that guy you saw downtown last week selling area rugs
out of a van) and be on your way.
One quick point: If you later
decide to put in the emotional and physical time and effort to upgrade your fan
status from DDFF to Hard-Core, don't act as if you've been such the entire
time. Your tenure as a DDFF is not grandfathered into your membership as
a "Real" fan. Don't get cute.
All that being said, I hope to see
some of you at the parade tomorrow (or today, depending on when I actually post
this). I'll be the one wearing the big coat, gloves, and O's cap;
pitchers and catchers report in 8 days, you know.
(Author's note: I apologize for
any weird formatting hiccups. Blogger's formatting bites big ones and I simply don't have time to figure it all out.)
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