Sports Essay
Kevin Walters Go Team! Sports have become a huge part of this country’s culture, and the sports fans make up a good portion of the population. Every other conversation you hear, whether it be at the water cooler or in a bar, has something to do with some big play or blown call that happened the night before. The popularity of sports has grown magnificently in just the last 24 years that I have been a sports fan. What used to be all the men yelling and cussing at the TV, has become almost as popular to women.
Whether it is football, basketball, or baseball, these fans come in all different shapes and sizes. If you are a follower of a team, a bandwagon fan, a fair weather fan, or a die-hard fan, we are all part of a great family of sports fans that make for a good time and some awesome conversation. The followers, as I like to call them, are just your basic fan of a specific sports team. They are with that team and will stick by them through thick and thin, but they wouldn’t mind being able to not watch a game if it got in the way of previous plans.
These fans may have a few shirts or maybe a hat or two of their favorite team but unless it’s game day, they don’t go out of their way to show that pride. A follower will usually not care to spend the money on tickets to actually go watch a game, but if they are given tickets or invited to go see a game with some friends, they will not hesitate to say yes. Being a follower is not a bad thing. It’s a safe position as far as being a fan of a certain team, because if your team wins you can cheer and brag to all your friends, but when they lose you don’t have that “heartbreak” that comes with the other types of fans.
The bandwagon fan is one of the most hated categories of fans that you could possibly be. A bandwagon fan is the type of fan that likes to cheer for the team that is most likely to win. These fans are usually fairly knowledgeable in the sport they are cheering for and will usually do their homework on whichever team they are cheering for that week. Bandwagoners will do what they can to make sure they are able to watch every game, this way they can see who plays good and bad and decide who they want to cheer for.
When it comes to clothes, a bandwagon fan’s closet will look like a rainbow of sorts of different sports teams. They have a jersey from 4 or 5 different teams that they like to switch between just to be ready in case one team is their favorite that week. Bandwagon fans enjoy going to watch a live game, and will cheer for whichever team is picked to win. Being a bandwagon is, like a follower, a very safe type of fan to be. Besides the fact that you will be hated by any true fans, you have the luxury of switching teams the next week if your team performs poorly.
Fair weather fans are the types of fans that hurt a team the most of all. These fans absolutely love their team at the season’s start, but if the team begins to struggle and shows no hope of doing well that year, these fans will disappear like ghosts. If the team is doing good and satisfying their expectations, a fair weather fan will do whatever they need to do to be able to watch the games on TV so they can be there to cheer them on. These fans make themselves very noticeable towards the middle of the season.
Fair weather fans will dress up in all the team colors and wave the team flag as if they were the truest fans ever but as soon as the team starts losing, the clothes get hung in the back of closet and the flags get taken town and put up in storage until the start of the next season. They will be the first ones in line to buy tickets to the opening home game, but a fair weather fan will never be a season ticket holder. A fair weather fan is a safe fan to be, but it is also a sad fan. These fans are the reason that games get blacked out on TV because the team can’t sell tickets to the game.
The last category of fans is the die-hard fan. These fans are absolutely crazy about their team, win or lose. They will fight with you and argue with you until the end and tell you why their team is the best, no matter what the record might say. Die-hard fans will request days off work and make plans around their team if that’s what it takes to be able to watch the big game. This fan will wear at least one article of clothing of his favorite team at least 6 days out of the week, even if they get blown out the week prior.
These kinds of fans will be your season ticket holders. They will make every game and be one of the first ones to the stadium. Die-hard fans are the best sports fans in my opinion. They are so passionate and so dedicated to their team, that it can easily be the most dangerous type of fan to be. If a die-hard fan’s favorite team loses, it can ruin his whole week, but as soon as they play again, he is right there cheering them on as if it was the Super Bowl or the World Series. Fans are what keep sports alive all around the world.
If these sports or teams didn’t have these kinds of fans, they wouldn’t be able to exist. Sports have become a lifestyle in this country and the fans have become a strong community. I couldn’t imagine what America or the world would be like without sports. Being the die-hard fan that I am of my favorite sports team, I just don’t know how I would function with my Florida Gators. So whether you are a follower, fair weather, bandwagon, or die-hard fan, keep cheering and keep passing down the tradition of being a sports fan in America.
