Being a Sports Fan in Washington State

I feel like this post has been coming for a while from me...what it is like to be a fan in the great state of Washington. I'm talking about those fans that every year pretend that our teams might actually win some games only to get halfway through the season and realize we don't have a chance so you start to talk about "next year". I am also talking about those of us that have to explain that we aren't all the weirdos that paint our faces and scream for 90 minutes or four quarters, but we are the fans that have a rotation of sports team gear that rotates with the season - baseball, soccer, college football, NFL, and for those nights when nothing else is on a hockey team that we would need a passport to actually see in person.

We are the fans that have been heartbroken and beaten down. We are the fans that have the low budget college team that the high budget college team on the other side of the state and that wear purple and bark at you for no reason say rude and demeaning things to even though they didn't actually get a degree there.

These are the fans I am about to talk about.

It is hard to get excited or even to be confident in your team's ability to win any game let alone a BIG game. We cheer and are happy at any success and fans that have teams that make it to championship games don't fully understand how being a fan like that feels like. I talk to Patriots or Yankees fans and they boast how their team is the best and it makes you shake your head because being a fan isn't about being a fan of the best it is about being a fan of what you love, where you heart is, despite winning or losing or making a total embarrassment of you (hello New Mexico Bowl 2013).

That is why when you are a fan of "your" team and they finally make it to the championship game you are cautiously excited. You want to jump and yell and scream, but you also don't want to do anything to cause some sort of catastrophic collapse that you have probably witnessed several times over (hello New Mexico Bowl 2013).

In this sense I would like to say HOORAY MY TEAM IS IN THE SUPERBOWL! and I would also like to say I HOPE WE WIN because I can't say we ARE going to win. That would be something that a Patriots fan would say and they aren't in the Superbowl this year...sorry folks.

If you are a fan of a team that people say isn't very good, or they make comments about how you suck for being a fan of a "sucky" team just politely smile and know how that person isn't a real fan because they don't get it. They don't get how you can support and love a sports team with a horrible losing record, to sit in frozen bleachers when your team is obviously not going to win, and still be proud to wear your colors the next day. The world needs all sorts of fans, but a sports fan in the great state of Washington is one that takes a little extra heart and a little extra cautious excitement.

Go SEAHAWKS!