Cheeeeeeeeers Chuckleheads!!
I hope all of you enjoyed your weekend and that football fans everywhere enjoyed their first full weekend of the 2013 NFL and NCAA football season.
There were a lot of great games, last minutes heroics, but mostly, drunken shenanigans in the name of football, and I appreciate that.
I love this time of year. It is still summer, but the nights are sometimes cool, and there is of course, the glory and partying associated with football taking place.
This time of year is like Christmas in September and Labor Day in December, and no matter which way you slice it or parse it, those two holidays are analogous…or not.
Anyhoo…
I do have a problem with football fans these days and a problem with football in general. Want to hear my problems with the sport and/or event that we call football? No?
Good, and I am anxious to write about it.
Over the past decade, the number of football fans has exploded, but here’s the thing. Many of these so-called fans, aren’t really football fans.
They are at best sunshine football patriots who enjoy throwing a party, a feeling of belonging, and at faux fandom’s worst…
Get to weave their hard life realities into the game day dialogue about “their team.”
Y’know? That last one…the “my team thing?” That drives me crazy!!
I don’t know about you, but here in Ohio, ninety percent of the college football “fans” are Ohio State fans.
And for some odd reason, the ninety-nine percent of OSU fans of whom I speak, have no personal association, connection, nor anything in common with OSU other than they are both located in Ohio, and like those who do attend OSU, the fans can neither read nor write.
I’m not an entirely stupid guy, but one thing I have never understood, is this slobbering, incoherent, live and die, cry if “my team” loses, mindset. OSU fans that I know are like this, and I am sure that there are many more.
Okay so you went to school there and even if you weren’t on the team you can be an uber fan, but if you didn’t go there and are still a voracious fan, you have issues…issues with which, I am intrigued, but would rather know nothing about.
NFL fans are just as bad, and as they are typically older, it may even be a bit more disturbing…
I am eighty miles from Paul Brown Stadium and three times that distance from Cleveland and yet, on a weekend basis during football season, I will see at least three dozen grown men wearing OSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, Bengals and/or Browns jerseys etc…
And I say to myself…
“Self, why are there jersey wearing adult men and women crying over a loss and celebrating over a win with which they had nothing to do…other than to watch others do it?”
See? It’s okay to wear a tasteful T-Shirt or what not in order to show some subtle and tasteful support fro a team, but when a grown person wears a jersey, it only exacerbates that abnormal thought in their head that they are part of the team.
So please, stop it. It’s getting out of hand.
I actually read on Facebook this week a comment from a Steelers fan commenting to one of his friends…
“Don’t talk to me until your team has won five Super Bowls like mine has.”
I am sure….well, I hope he was joking…but it was the, “I am actually on the team” feel in his comment that gave me a case of the goo.
The worse thing is, this fanatic feeling of rooting for and wanting to win, has invaded our psyche, the governing of our nation, and the political discourse that takes place in the media.
Listen to Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow, The Five, and Chris Matthews on TV for a couple of days, and you’ll find…
They are just like an Ohio State football fan, they don’t care why, or what has to happen to make it so; they just want to win.
Because winning and being like everybody else, and better who they think themselves to be individually, is far more important than due diligence and common sense.
Cheers!!
Matt-Man
mattmaniws@ymail.com
@MattMan_IWS
My Facebook Page
And why you chew on that bone of sunshine, you can listen to IWS Radio…Jay and I had a masterpiece of a show going yesterday…AND our uber-lovely friend from Canada, Jamie, was so taken with us, she called in TWICE!!
There were a lot of great games, last minutes heroics, but mostly, drunken shenanigans in the name of football, and I appreciate that.
I love this time of year. It is still summer, but the nights are sometimes cool, and there is of course, the glory and partying associated with football taking place.
This time of year is like Christmas in September and Labor Day in December, and no matter which way you slice it or parse it, those two holidays are analogous…or not.
Anyhoo…
I do have a problem with football fans these days and a problem with football in general. Want to hear my problems with the sport and/or event that we call football? No?
Good, and I am anxious to write about it.
Over the past decade, the number of football fans has exploded, but here’s the thing. Many of these so-called fans, aren’t really football fans.
They are at best sunshine football patriots who enjoy throwing a party, a feeling of belonging, and at faux fandom’s worst…
Get to weave their hard life realities into the game day dialogue about “their team.”Y’know? That last one…the “my team thing?” That drives me crazy!!
I don’t know about you, but here in Ohio, ninety percent of the college football “fans” are Ohio State fans.
And for some odd reason, the ninety-nine percent of OSU fans of whom I speak, have no personal association, connection, nor anything in common with OSU other than they are both located in Ohio, and like those who do attend OSU, the fans can neither read nor write.
I’m not an entirely stupid guy, but one thing I have never understood, is this slobbering, incoherent, live and die, cry if “my team” loses, mindset. OSU fans that I know are like this, and I am sure that there are many more.
Okay so you went to school there and even if you weren’t on the team you can be an uber fan, but if you didn’t go there and are still a voracious fan, you have issues…issues with which, I am intrigued, but would rather know nothing about.
NFL fans are just as bad, and as they are typically older, it may even be a bit more disturbing…
I am eighty miles from Paul Brown Stadium and three times that distance from Cleveland and yet, on a weekend basis during football season, I will see at least three dozen grown men wearing OSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, Bengals and/or Browns jerseys etc…
And I say to myself…
“Self, why are there jersey wearing adult men and women crying over a loss and celebrating over a win with which they had nothing to do…other than to watch others do it?”
See? It’s okay to wear a tasteful T-Shirt or what not in order to show some subtle and tasteful support fro a team, but when a grown person wears a jersey, it only exacerbates that abnormal thought in their head that they are part of the team.
So please, stop it. It’s getting out of hand.
I actually read on Facebook this week a comment from a Steelers fan commenting to one of his friends…“Don’t talk to me until your team has won five Super Bowls like mine has.”
I am sure….well, I hope he was joking…but it was the, “I am actually on the team” feel in his comment that gave me a case of the goo.
The worse thing is, this fanatic feeling of rooting for and wanting to win, has invaded our psyche, the governing of our nation, and the political discourse that takes place in the media.
Listen to Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow, The Five, and Chris Matthews on TV for a couple of days, and you’ll find…
They are just like an Ohio State football fan, they don’t care why, or what has to happen to make it so; they just want to win.
Because winning and being like everybody else, and better who they think themselves to be individually, is far more important than due diligence and common sense.
Cheers!!
Matt-Man
mattmaniws@ymail.com
@MattMan_IWS
My Facebook Page
And why you chew on that bone of sunshine, you can listen to IWS Radio…Jay and I had a masterpiece of a show going yesterday…AND our uber-lovely friend from Canada, Jamie, was so taken with us, she called in TWICE!!
