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Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Born an Atlanta sports fan, or made a fan?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Do you have to be born into local sports fandom, or can you be made a fan?
I grew up where people are mad for hockey, basketball and more recently, baseball. I left college with drawers full of green-and-white Michigan State University paraphernalia. It was easy to get swept up in close scores, scandal and rivalry without knowing a thing about the game. (Sports and I don’t really get along.)
A few years later, I was in Lexington, Kentucky, home of the University of Kentucky and not a single pro sports team. I proudly attached my green-and-white sticker to my car after I watched MSU beat UK in the men’s basketball NCAA Tournament, but it was impossible to live in Lexington without a teensy bit of interest in Kentucky sports. The people don’t just bleed blue; they wash in blue, puke blue, swaddle themselves in silky blue, blow giant blue raspberries. It was easy to get caught up in the spirit, if not the sport.
And now I’m in Atlanta, where pro teams abound and in-state college rivalries are a big, big deal. I’ve got a cousin who attends University of Georgia, but no strong ties to the campus. Georgia Tech is always a good resource when I need someone to translate science into newspaper, which doesn’t seem like much of a reason to care about its football team. I’ve got no reason to love or hate any of the pro sports teams.
So when you move some place new, do your old sports allegiances die? And how do you form new ones?
I’ve heard some people say they wouldn’t live in a town where they didn’t like the teams. Seems crazy to me, but then…maybe not. I know plenty of perfectly sane, kind people who list “watching ESPN” as a hobby on Facebook and chose Michigan State for the basketball. If it demands that much time and passion, why wouldn’t you pick a place where you love the sports?
But if you’ve got no history here, no reason to pick one team over anther, what’s the sport, team or rivalry worth getting caught in? What’s the difference between real fandom, and the kind you have just by living in a place where the team plays?
Q & As. Every Friday. Leave your questions about the best of, history of, quirkiness of Atlanta and Georgia in the comments or in my e-mail at jgumbrecht@ajc.com. We’ll try to get your questions answered in Friday’s post. Don’t be shy.
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