I donít mean to get sappy, but the worst heartbreak of my childhood wasnít due to my puppy running away, losing the spelling bee or the ever-prevalent lady troubles.† Stupidly enough, it was due to sports.† In 2003, when I was 13 years old and fresh off my Bar Mitzvah, I witnessed my favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, fall in the playoffs in the most agonizing way possible.† Iíd rather not reiterate what happened that year ó it still brings back bad memories of the taunting, the jeering and most of all the feeling of helplessness.† The amount of effort I put into that team only to watch them fall the way they did is still mind-boggling to me.† I watched, quite literally, every game that season, all the while screaming, and then crying with Cubs fans everywhere.
This leaves a very fundamental yet trying question ó Why do we do it?† Why do we devote so much time, money and effort into teams and athletes with which we have no personal relationships?† The best illustration I can use is that of an actual relationship.† While I know next to nothing about being in one, I know that after all of the laughs, the tears, the fights, the betrayals, the lies and the separations, true love conquers all.† At least thatís what happened in ìThe Notebook.”
We do it for the reward. While sometimes favorable and sometimes injurious, these ìrewards” can be defined in several categories.
The first of these categories is pride.† In my eyes this is the most important basis of fandom.† Itís also the simplest ó your team wins, youíre proud; your team loses, youíre not.† But what pride also comes with is, more importantly, the ability to brag.† What purpose do you think those customized replica jerseys and those obnoxious car flags serve?† With the invention of competition, the ability to brag became rooted in human nature.
Donít believe me?† You know that Pittsburgh fan who is overly obsessed with the Steelers and Penguins?† You know, the one who talks trash all week on Facebook to the point where you wonder if he/she has a social life outside of social networking?† Can you imagine the pride they feel after their winning a championship after all their time and money spent?† Thatís the feeling we all want.† Before telling that Pittsburgh fan that they have a baseball team in the same way Detroit has a football team, therefore losing the ability to call themselves citizens of ìThe City of Champions,” just remember that you would do the exact same thing in their position.† In no way can you deny that.
Pride is simply not enough to keep us going ó thatís something you can gather from reading a box score or watching the highlight reels.† Thereís more to the reward you get from being a fan, and thatís the thrill.
How many times have you watched your team play their hearts out only to lose in overtime on a miraculous play by the opponent?† Although you lost, more times than not youíll tell yourself that it was a great game regardless.† So many times we fans are caught up worrying about the outcome of games that we forget that watching sports at its very roots is all about entertainment.† Itís about the thrill we get from sudden-death goals, walk-off home runs and overtime touchdowns. These excruciating bouts of excitement catch us off guard and therefore entertain us.
Adrenaline is the culprit here.† That rush you get, for example, when Grady Sizemore robs a home run is very similar to the rush you get when Kerry Wood gives up a game-winning run.† It doesnít really matter what side the action takes place on, the main idea is that it happens.† We sit through hours and hours of sports programming to be surprised by one-handed catches, game-winning hits and clutch field goals.† The thrill is a facet of our fandom, and it will continue to bring us back long after we say weíve given up.
Although these two propositions, pride and ecstasy, solve why we like the overall reward, they donít explain an interesting phenomena ó what keeps the Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns and Indians, and even myself, the Chicago Cubs fan, coming back?† Boredom?† Stubbornness?† Possibly.† My proposal is hope.† Yes, clichÈ as it is, there is always the hope of achieving the two pinnacles of fandom.† Oddly enough, weakening sports organizations are the few objects in our society in which we donít throw out or give up on when they fail ó except for maybe the WNBA.† Thereís always the mindset deep down that one day your team will provide you with those two satisfactions.
After the Cubsí now famous 2003 collapse it would have been easy for me to walk out on the team forever. But I didnít because I realized why I followed them in the first place: the pride, the thrill and the hope in which they provided were unmatched in any other facet of my life.
Weíd all like to give up on being a fan at some point.† Sometimes weíd like to give up on the pain, the agony and the suffering, but something inside us says we canít.† Trust me ó Iíve tried Ö and failed miserably.
Jason Weingardt is a regular contributor to the Voice. He can be reached at jweingardt12@wooster.edu.