Every week, from the beginning of September through the beginning of January, I live and die with my favorite football team. Everything they do takes a toll on my mind, body, and soul. When they succeed, I am in a fog of elation that could have me smiling at a wake. When they lose, I am in a well of despair that makes a wake look like petting zoo.
I am obsessive. I read blogs about them. I look at more statistics than anyone rightfully should. I pour over each moment of gameplay with the intensity of someone who ACTUALLY works for the team, rather than someone who dreams of scrounging their way into working for the team. I yell and scream at my television as if the players, coaches, and front office staff can hear me, even though they might be thousands of mile away. I plead with them to stop being terrible, and I celebrate with them when they, for a brief moment stop being terrible.
I stay up late to watch them in primetime, even though I know that I have to be up absurdly early for work in the morning. I don't care. That's what being a fan means. It's being so passionate about something that you have literally no vested interest that people think you might be crazy and not caring about their negativity. Being a sports fan is illogical. It's an attribute that has no basis in reason, but it's something shared by tens of millions across the globe. Not just football, mind you, but all sports. The sports industry brings in money by the tanker. Sports is the one thing that will always turn a profit, because no matter how bad an economy might be, people will scrimp and save in order to spend money on their favorite sports team.
Being a sports fan means feeling so strongly about something intangible that you stop what you are doing to pay fast attention to it. At the end of the day, all sports is, for most people, is a hobby. It's something that you attach yourself to for entertainment in your down time. It's something that you can talk about with coworkers that is interesting but not work. It's something that you can try to relax with, but can't because you are so intensely interested that you obsess over the minutiae.
Sports invites envy. Those young people are doing things that you injure yourself thinking about. They have gotten to a point where what they are doing is impossibly hard, but they make it look childishly easy. Sure, I can throw a football, swing a baseball bat, kick a soccer ball, dribble a basketball. I can ice skate a little, and when I had healthy knees, I could run a bit. It seems so easy to watch these professionals do it that you think you can do it yourself. And when they mess up, you don't understand how. "I CAN MAKE THAT THROW, YOU MORON!" "HOW DID YOU DROP THAT, ASSHOLE? YOU ARE A JOKE AND A SCRUB!"
I always think that, if I had made some different decisions, I could have been an elite athlete. This is wrong on every level. If I had made some different decisions, I could have known an elite athlete, and that's about it. So when the players on my favorite football team fuck up, which they do frequently, because the team isn't that good, I think, for some stupid reason, that I could have succeeded. I wouldn't stand a chance. But I don't care. I have to watch them. I have to see if they redeem themselves.
Sports is a battle. Watching sports is akin to the people who would go watch the battles in old school wars from a safe place atop a hill. I sit on that hill every week and watch my favorite battalion of uniformed gladiators go to war with the favorite battalion of another man. I root for my side to be victorious. When they do, they gain something, and by proxy I do as well. I am obsessed with this feeling. I can't get enough of it.
I can't stop it either. Football fandom is my heroin. I know that it's unhealthy to be this way, but I can't stop it. I am a junkie and I know it. I don't care. I know that what I do on Sundays isn't the most productive thing to do on a day off, and I know that I sit on a couch and stare at a television for 10 straight hours, which has to do a number on my eyes. I don't care.
My hatred for my football team stems from the fact that I have loved them. I have been loyal to them for 34 years, and every week from September to January, they have been there for me. They have taken me away from my life, given me an outlet from the things that get me down. I can focus on them, devote myself to them, and immerse myself in the game. They don't know me, and I am only one of millions of fans worldwide. I don't care.
They cause me stress. They make me scream until I am hoarse. They make me eat my feelings, and drink away my other feelings. They make me say things I don't believe. They turn me into a maniac. And I still don't care. They are my drug. They make me hate myself for giving this much of a damn about something out of my control. They make me superstitious. They make me irrational. They make me forget all the things that I know to be true and I turn into a raving lunatic of conspiratorial nonsense and raving madness.
And I don't care.
I hate the New York Giants. But I love them so so so much. And I don't care.
SD
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