Some perspective (good or bad) on fandom
There has been a lot of discussion over the last couple of years about what makes some people better fans than others. For what it is worth, I think this board has a very shaky definition of a true fan. For full disclosure, I have sat through 5-3 games that eskimos left because they were too cold, used to wake up early and make breakfast as a payment to my roomates for making us all get to the stadium early so I could watch the defense warm up with "bull in the ring" and have been so distraught after a MIchigan loss that I literally cancelled a date for saturday night and sulked the whole weekend away. None of that makes me a better fan than anyone else. In fact, that last one makes me sad for myself and for those of you who seem hold the same kind of behavior as some kind of a badge of honor.
Thankfully, I have gotten older, gotten married, had children, and gained some perspective. I now root for Michigan (whether it be football, women's tennis, or beer pong), enjoy the time spent with family and friends, and go on with my life win or lose. So, if you are that guy at the picnic spewing four letter words, kicking the neighbors dog, and all the while thinking that you are somehow a better fan than everyone else, you should know that you are wrong. You are just a jackass. You are not a better fan if you stood by RR, just as you are not a better fan if you wanted him fired. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you are not a better fan if you are facebook friends with all of our 2015 recuits. Trust me when I tell you that Michigan football will beat OSU again some day, and that they will just as assuredly lose to Minnesota again. Either way, you will survive. Relax, and enjoy the fun of it.
-Note- this post was triggered by the line "So you'll have to excuse the rest of us who stood in those stands during the Fandom Endurance III game and are terribly sad about how the last three years worked out " which I interpereted as yet another 'I am a better fan than you because...' type of a line.
I don't have to listen to you!
when you try to qualify a person's fandom
Lol come on man you can't make a grammatical error in a sentence about how you've grown up and then talk about rooting for Michigan in beer pong because then I can't even finish the rest of your post.
Perhaps you are unaware that a team from UofM won a national championship in beer pong a few years back.
I'm old (married with children)and I still am in a shitty mood till Thursday after a loss. Maybe it's better but when I would lose playing Friday then a UM loss saturday...End of Days man.
Yes I know my Al Bundy pic but damn if I can relate to Married with Children.
Good post. And I largely agree about not telling people I'm a better/worse/equal fan than them.
With one exception - do you support the student athletes when the going gets rough? You clearly do. But Brian's frustration seems to be at those that say, "well, no, but because losing sux."
brian's point is to demarcate the bandwagon fans who forgot to support the team when things were rough. whether you're watching every minute and going nuts, or just following the team quietly on your own, its still support. given what many alums are saying now, its seems that michigan football didn't even have their support during the past three years, and THAT is sad.
Couldn't have said this any better.
You'll never know if you don't try...
Haha I do agree, Pasadenablue. Well put.
"You know, it's just kind of unsettling that there's … it's great that they're back, but it's kind of, where have they been the last two or three years?" Van Bergen said. "We've still been wearing the same helmets since they were here."
speaks to this. You can not support the coach, but not supporting the Student Athletes makes you a bad fan. Especially this bunch that are such a great group of kids (mentioned by Brian)
Also some guy, I'll call him Bo, had this to say,
"When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing"
I think there are level of fandom too. I think I am better than the fans that send death threats to kids who make a bad play like drop a pass or miss a field goal. If you think you are equals, great, but don't expect me to.
its no fun when we are losing to OSU year after year. After a lose though I don't take it too seriously, I just won't watch any highlights of the game, which means no ESPN or BTN for the week following a loss.
FB God, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if they were good men or bad. Why they fought, or why we died. All that matters is that they stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, FB God... so grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!
Excellent adaptation of Conan!! +1 to you sir!
Krom...KROM!
If your team wins, you still have to pay the rent/mortgage that month, find that job, or apologize to that old lady, or get that rectal exam, or clean up that dog shit, or . . . (insert lamentable event that concretely impacts your life).
If your team loses, you still have good friends and family, may have passed that test, or landed that customer, or won that case, or saved that life, or had sex with that great girl, or . . . (insert positive event that concretely impacts your life).
Until I see their concrete, quantifiable impact on the actual affairs of my life, I refuse to become too emotionally involved with sports. Great if they win, not a big deal if they lose.
The best kind of fan is someone who:
1) Tries to keep things in perspective
2) Takes it as well as they dish it out
3) Doesn't call someone else's fandom into question because of some moral law they've concocted about how a true fan should behave
We lost, you're not going to die. I'm pissed at the refs too, but I don't want to kill them. You didn't stay through the end of that game, and I'll probably give you a little ribbing about it, but I'll still invite you next time I have an extra ticket. You root for OSU, but I can look past that because I've known you for years and you're a good dude.
Nicely done. You got my point across in half of the amount of words.
is completely irrelevant to what Brian was saying. He criticized players, alums and fans who didn't support RR from the very beginning--almost off of them for parochial or prejudicial reasons. Those who, as Brandstatter said, made it difficult for RR--and thus for the Michigan football program--from the very beginning. But to put it in the genre of your mistaken post--yes, if a person did that from the beginning of RR's tenure, they ARE worse fans than the others who supported the school from the beginning. And that is just true.
1) Never boos his team (players or coaches) no matter what happens !
2) Never makes a fool of themselves in the stadium (drinking or swearing ... or telling people to SIT DOWN).
3) Is loyal to Michigan ... alone !
Go Blue !
Agree with all that. Except the leaving early part. I will give you all kinds of shit for that unless you have a relative in the hospital.
a DarkBlue fan. Butt-peeing and all.
Agreed. Though, it sounds like you are a fan in spite of the butt-peeing and not because of it, which I find odd.
Someone needs to design a Goosebumps-esque survey in which readers choose from a variety of options. Really, the crucial question is this:
(Hypothetically) Would you support Rich Rodriguez if...
-He won 12+ games pear year.
-I would not support him even if he won 12+ games per year. I care about the tradition at Michigan.
They also need to be categorized.
"I would take Terrelle Pryor even knowing that he would become Chris Webber 2.0 (minus any indications of intelligence) because he wins games. - "Columbus" Fan
"I would love if Nick Saban coached Michigan and found new recruiting loopholes" - (average) SEC Fan
Now that would give us some perspective on fanhood. Your post, while genuine, is garbage. It includes the pronoun "you" in the title and says almost nothing about your audience.
" Relax and enjoy the fun of it."
Wow, you've said something profound. /s
And what value does sarcasm - or its unnecessary and redundant companion "/s" - add to this comment?
This is a "keep perspective" post, which, in my mind, is always welcome in the sports context.
A fortiori, a comment reacting to all the childish fandom pissing contests that occur doesn't require profundity to be valid (IMHE).
Not everything needs to be profound; in this you are correct. Forgive me if, in my Mgoblog adventures, I have encountered too many of these posts and wish to enforce greater quality or diversity through dissent. The sarcasm was a bit much, and my post should've been longer in order to include suggestions on how to fix these errors. Instead, it contains a garbled idea not intended to be perceived seriously. I'll concede that.
. . .
Wow, you are a douchebag. I'm pretty sure that is something both pro- and anti-RR factions could agree on.
I can go to dinner with my wife after a loss. I'm just not making scintillating conversation.
I am you from the not-so-far away future, where two worded internet names have been outlawed. Please make scintillating conversation with your wife. That is all.
After a big loss, that deafening quiet you hear in the neighborhood for three days is probably me.
NEEDS MOAR PARAGRAPHS
"We'll see how he looks in UFR, but Mouton looked dynamite, at least against the run."
sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Two things:
1) Clearly there are differing levels of fandom. Someone who only watches Michigan games when they have nothing better to do is clearly not as much of a fan as someone who goes out of their way to make sure they watch every game. That said, someone who is rich and can afford to attend every game in person is not necessarily a bigger fan than someone who can't afford to go to every game. However, the point still stands that there clearly are different levels of fans.
2) What Brian and most other people were saying (I assume) is not so much "OH LOOK AT ME I'M A BIGGER FAN THAN YOU" as much as "you are a shitty fan because you stopped caring about the team just because you didn't like the coach." I don't think many people would say that someone was less of a fan because they didn't like Rich Rodriguez. What people are saying makes someone less of a fan is if they stopped supporting the team and the University BECAUSE they didn't like RR. Not liking Rich Rodriguez is a personal opinion. Stopping supporting your team (or saying negative things like Braylon and others did) is not only NOT being a fan, it's backstabbing the university.
Some people are bigger fans than others, but as you said, it doesn't necessarily make them BETTER fans.
I dyed my cat maize and blue, named him Bo and shaved a block M on his side, does that make me a better fan or just crazy?
The most interesting off-season develop appears to be which board topic will become the most annoying by virtue of being beat into the ground:
1. The board's inability to read anything without some portion of posters getting up in arms about veiled attacks on Rodriguez/Hoke/your mother/apple pie. (As well as the subsequent meta-complaints about how all that sniping is stupid and should stop.)
or
2. The constant back and forth about good v. bad fans, and how the poster is invariably a good fan and others are bad fans for one reason or another. (And of course, the subsequent meta-complaints about how this is a stupid issue and we shouldn't care or try to categorize the fanbase.)
Everybody's ranting and raving about how Rich had his head in the vice before he even got here, and how the program was already divided before he started winning or losing. That's not untrue, and the factions began the day he was hired and only grew in stature and power in the nine months before that first game against Utah.
Now here we are, too few years later and anxiously awaiting the first game of our next head coach. And what are we doing? Ranting and raving about what this person said or what this person did not, and exhausting ourselves about what the coach is or is not doing, and how it is being received by the fan base, the media, and the alumni.
Have we not already seen what all this baseless speculation is capable of?
Have we not learned the dangers of the inane sports-radio quality we give in this pointless analysis of non-game behavior??? Nine months of he should/she should/he didn't/he isn't/blah blah blah-- we've seen firsthand how it only creates biased expectations, divides solidarity, and makes it that much harder for the student athletes to succeed in the face of adversity.
What we need to do is SHUT UP.
They've got to win. Hoke, Mattison, Borges... Robinson, Martin, Roundtree, Roh... they get that.
Our opinions as fans will not shore up the line. They will help Hemingway make a catch he would otherwise drop. And they're certainly not going to make young men grasp blitz packages faster.
For the next five months until opening day, the best thing we can do as fans, and as a fan base, is to let the new coaching staff do their job. It's easy to point out what is wrong from our own perspective, but during the Rich era, how often did we learn how limited those perspectives truly were?
In Brian's case, it's a little different, and I concede that. This is his job. There are a lot of people out there that WANT to know what he thinks. That are coming to this site to find out what he thinks. He'd be stupid not to give it to them. Besides, as the proprietor of this domain, as far as I'm concerned he has the authority to say pretty much whatever he'd like. If he wants to write a below-the-scroll rant on what Rita Rodriguez thinks of Al Borges hairstyle, that's his right-- and if you don't like it that's yours as well, but don't think you have any place to tell him to remove it. His blog, his content, the end.
You're a big fan, you expect better. We all do. This is clearly defined and understood. Give the staff time to develop their team. Let the paint dry. Or better yet, get out of the way so the painter can work.
...post. Can we get a t-shirt design with this sentiment?
"STFU and Let Hoke Coach 'em Up"
Maybe we just need to get the MGoProfile series cranked up again?
It was fun arguing about it the first time...And the second time...but what do you all have against dead horses?
this post is fuckin stooopid.
Some fans are bigger than other fans because they are genetically predisposed to a low metabolism and really, really like pizza.
Just sayin'.....
We have taken advantage of the lower level of enthusiasm and poor economy to get better seats! gotta take the opportunity when you see it.