Fanatics The Good, The Bad and The Reality

I remember my first MLive experience.

Remember when they invented separate paragraphs in the english language?

My first beer. Good times... Goooood times!

Whenever we lose a game in which we play like dogshit there are two posts you can absolutely set your watch to the next day. This one, the "we used to really, really suck so all the complainers need to be be quiet" post is usually first up.

The second, the "hey guys-look on the bright side" silver-lining post will be up shortly afterwards trying to convince everyone that its a GOOD thing we got beat. Team learned their lesson, will be focused, understands what's expected, yada yada yada.

I do have to give the OP credit though. Instead of using the current board favorites "they're Freshman!" Or "they're TIRED" to try and get people to stop complaining he went with the seldom used "you don't play on the team" angle. Nice!

I don't think people are as upset about losing a few games as they are about losing the games that we should be winning because we clearly are. The better team.

Wha...did the OP really mean it when saying we really aren't classier and better than other fan bases? Or did he just have a bad day and is being mean to us...(sob)?

I'm just gonna have to grab my teddy bear and blankie and curl up in the fetal position all day sucking my thumb until I get over this (sniff)...

The third step is to blame the officials...

The original post reminds me unpleasantly of "Go Blue Michigan Wolverine."

Are you eroc from gobluemichganwolverinegoteamgoblueteamgo.com?

Also, if you think Rome can't be built in a day then you've never seen Chuck Norris play with legos.

I'm not sure how one can be a genuine fan of a team without getting emotionally involved in some way. If there is such a thing as emotionally-detached fandom, I don't really want anything to do with it. Sports are emotional. Athletes play with emotion and fans reciprocate that emotion. Also, following a team involves a sense of vicariousness, which I think is pretty natural. Fans identify with the teams that they follow. When our teams lose, we get upset or sad or whatever. I also think that the "bragging rights" thing that you mentioned is a part of being a sports fan as well. I couldn't really imagine sports without opposing fan bases. rivalries between fan bases is one of the things that makes following sports really fun.

Of course, you can have all of these things and still be "classy" at the same time. Based on my experience, Michigan fans do tend to be a little classier than opposing fans. They also tend to be more articulate, which I appreciate. At the end of the day, fans are human, and they will act like it from time to time.

Many people have gone from irrational (if understandable) optimism to unwarranted disappointment that resulted from the irrational optimism. The good news is that so many folks care about the basketball team. I think many of them - and this is an obnoxious thing to say - don't remember or know what it's like to root for a high-level program. People don't seem to realize that seasons in which you win every game that you "should" win are few and far between and that relying on freshman - while it can work - is a very shakey proposition.

I bought the set of tickets to all games. Naive, I was.

Nonetheless, I agree with the OP on several points. It is a good thing to be classy. But the meme that Michigan fans are classy is obv. an overgeneralization. I wonder if the fact that we've won so much in football over the years along with the general stature of UofM allows Michigan fans to be more patronizing, arrogant, and, in a sense, "classy." Probably. But the more you go to games and are around others, the more you realize there are good and bad apples in every fanbase, including Michigan's fans.

I do believe that Michigan will improve, even sans Burke. It does take some time to get defensive footwork and play down cold. I don't think it is a good thing that Michigan lost to Wisconsin, but I'm not surprised. When we didn't capitalize on their horrid shooting in the first half, I had a very, very bad sense of foreboding. We are going to struggle against a very disciplined, strong, defense oriented team. There aren't a ton of those in the country, but Wisconsin, Ohio, and MSU are three of them.

I also want to give a quick shout out to the Maize Rage. They were very visible in the UC, and had a much larger contingent than any other student section there. Boy, the Big 10 really gave the students the worst seats in the house, however. They had terrible seats.

I can guaran-damn-tee you Bo would be as pissed as anyone if one of his teams lost due to a lack of effort. And a kid would never see the field again if he repeatedly half-assed it on plays which he wasn't getting the ball.