What Makes You A Fan

I got this tender comment yesterday on my sports post:

I love how you pretend to be a BYU football fan now that you're back in Provo. Faker. At least you know who won.

I was a little irked by this comment. I don't think I ever pretended to be some big time BYU football fan, but I also know that it's not like I wasn't ever interested in it, or worse, that I ever rooted against the team.

What is the criteria anyway for being a fan? Do I have to be some kind of obsessive freak who thinks that if I read my scriptures the sports programs will actually do better because it's a church school? Even if I had never ever even followed a BYU football game in my entire life, does this person somehow own a monopoly over fandom and BYU football? Am I not allowed to even begin rooting for the team because I don't own season tickets, or I won't travel long distances to go and see them play?

In any case, I have always been a fan of the team, but admittedly my dedication was never as fanatical as that of some of the other people who have attended this institution. Still, here are some points for the aforementioned skeptic of my fanhood that should go in my favor.

1. I have lived in Provo for at least 38 months.
2. I graduated from BYU and even have an alumni placard.
3. I have attended at least several games in my lifetime, with one of those being at an opponents stadium.
4. My trainer from the mission is a coach for the football team.
5. I watch their games whenever they are televised.
6. I read articles about the football program, even when I was no longer a student at the university.
7. I was able to recognize and shake hands of former BYU great Todd Christensen at the Smithfield Field House one Saturday morning, also member of the 1980 world champion Oakland Raiders.
8. I follow former BYU players in the NFL. I know where Brandon Doman, Todd Watkins, Chad Lewis, Doug Jolley, John Beck, Reno Mahe all play(ed) in the NFL, and in most of those cases, when they were drafted by those teams. Do you even know who all of those guys are?
9. I considered doing my thesis work using coach Bronco Mendenhall as a case study illustrating transformational leadership within an organization.
10. I have attended at least 4 firesides of the BYU head football coaches LaVell Edwards and Bronco Mendenhall.
11. I am getting two more degrees from the university.
12. I have donated to the BYU Annual Fund every year since my senior year as an undergraduate student.
13. I pay tithing.
14. I know the BYU fight song.
15. I have hiked the Y....I'm reaching now.

You get the point. I think I'm entitled just as much as anybody else to enjoy the program and follow the team. And here's the thing...even if I didn't do any of those things, who are you to say that I'm a faker? Am I just supposed to not follow the team because I don't somehow fit your narrow definition of what it means to be a fan?

A couple of years ago I was watching a documentary on Metallica and their rise to fame. Just like most bands, they started out as some young garage band with big aspirations fighting against big odds. They had developed a local following and then when suddenly (originally, I included the phrase "all of the sudden," but then decided against it because I recently saw the Family Guy episode when Stewie was chastising people for using that phrase, as well as 'irregardless' and 'a whole 'nother') they finally started to make it big with Hit the Lights, people actually started to get upset with them. I loved Lars Ulrich's response, that went something like, "what? are we just always supposed to be some little garage band that only you love and that you keep in your pocket? don't we deserve any of the benefit of playing our music that we created?"

I guess what I picked up from watching that interview was that as a fan it's pretty lame for any of us to get upset at other people who may have not been as crazed about a particular band or team because they are finally starting to appreciate what we always have. I can understand when the person is only a casual observer and then pretends that they were with the team through thick and thin, or they jump on and off repeatedly from the bandwagon. But in my case, I don't think I qualify for either of those.

I have always been interested in the football team, but in my defense I have other teams that I follow much more closely. I only have so much sports attention to go around. And the problem of questioning my integrity as a fan is that I tend to dig deeper than most people when it comes to things that I'm interested in, so I probably know more and appreciate more about BYU football than a lot of the "true fans" do.

So suck on that. But maybe this wouldn't have come up if I didn't question your husband's masculinity.

(The song doesn't actually come on until about 5 mintues in.)