Why I Like Football

So weirdly, I've been realizing more and more of my friends are not fans of football. In fact, many are very anti-football. They're incredibly disdainful of me for being a fan of the Broncos, not because they're the Broncos, but because they're a football team. These post-game riots and stabbings aren't helping my case, but what can you do? Here's a post that goes out to my anti-sports friends. And also to my pro-sports readers, be you athletes or fans, because I'm sure you have some friends like mine too. 

First, I'd like to address the riots and stabbings. I am not those people. My people are not those people. I don't condone those people. The riots are tragic events and shunned within the sporting community.

Judging a fandom by the extremists is like judging the Star Wars movies by Jar Jar Binks. It's just a bad idea, you get the wrong impression. People within the fandom don't even like Jar Jar; similarly, people within the football fandom don't like the ones who take it too far. If you think you'd be the one to stab people, I completely understand and support your decision to avoid becoming a fan. Please, if you think you'd become a lunatic, do whatever it takes to avoid becoming a lunatic. However, I've never been to a Super Bowl party, or a party for any game, or any game, that ended in a stabbing. Football fans do not lose rationality just by being a football fan.

Basically, the argument that becoming a football fan will make you crazy enough to stab people is fallacious (cum hoc ergo propter hoc). There's also the fallacy of composition, assuming that something true of part of the whole is also true of the whole. It's Philosophy 101.

Now that I've put that to rest, I can get into the title. 

The point of joining a fandom, any fandom, is escapism. It's losing yourself so wholly to something other than your own life that it actually becomes a part of your life. Geeks do it with SciFi, fantasy and BBC. Those less fantastically inclined tend toward sports.* I happen to do both. I can just as easily become enraptured with a time travelling alien as I can with Peyton Manning. 

It's not hard to understand why. I live in Boulder, Colorado. I go to normal classes at normal times of day and learn normal things. I wait tables, I go home and study, I go to bed. I wake up, and I repeat. Daily, over and over, this is my life, and it's nothing compelling.

But the life of Sherlock Holmes or Danaerys Targaryen is so constantly interesting, so much more than calculus and spaghetti, it's easy to get lost in their lives. And it's the same for the Broncos. Their struggles are my struggles, their fight is my fight. Most importantly, however, their triumphs are my triumphs (and there are A LOT of triumphs this season!)

More than anything, though, it's the camaraderie. It's getting on social media and seeing everyone bleeding orange and blue on my newsfeed. It's seeing SO MANY Tom Brady hate memes and laughing to myself. It's identifying with an entire community. We all share the identity of being a Broncos fan. I even support the fair weather fans because those people just need something to make them happy. All of this is absolutely no different than being in a tumblr-friendly fandom.

Hear me out.

Week to week, game by game, episode by episode, we wait with bated breath to see how the story will progress, and even after the hero (aka the Broncos) beats the villain, we sit and wait to see who the next adversary will be, and just how exciting the game will be. We scream at screens, we bite our nails, we plan massive viewing parties of like-minded people. Or not, whatever, roll how you roll, introverts are cool too. 

But to the people who argue that sports are pointless compared to other fandoms, that watching grown men push each other to get a sack of air down a field is stupid, I'm begging you, SHUT UP.

It's not about what they're doing, it's not about the bare bones, no more than you are. It's not about the flesh and blood either. It's not about the marketing, it's hardly even about the colors, or the icons. Just as you are about the things you do and the reactions you cause in other people, so are sports and every other fandom.

For me, personally, football is about tradition. The Broncos were my first fandom, back in the days of Elway, Davis, McCaffrey, and Smith. I was born into the Broncos golden age, and every time I sit down for a game, I remember sitting on the couch with my nails painted alternately orange and blue. I remember my dad explaining to me what a first down was and the difference between a quarterback and a cornerback. I remember learning to throw a spiral so I could keep up with the boys on the playground. 

Yes, there's bragging rights. Yes, there's the idolizing of the great players (#PFM), there's the trend and the bandwagon, but there is truly an element of heart in every game. As much as you can want Harry to kill Voldemort (or Umbridge), I can want Tom Brady to cry into his lap after we beat him. That's just the way it works for me. As much as you want Batman to beat the Joker and save the city, I can root for Denver to beat the opponent and save our Mile High pride.

This post has been pretty exclusively Broncos, but this applies to any sports team. Chelsea FC, Avalanche, Team USA, Rockies (poor things), Nuggets, any school team... Being their fan lets them be part of your identity, and that's actually pretty cool, because then there are people who have that piece inside of them as well. Collectively, all these people with this piece become the identity of the team. It's this crazy, symbiotic relationship; one cannot exist without the other (unless we're talking about the Raiders who still exist by some miracle.) It's all about being a part of something bigger than yourself. 

If you've never been to a game, GO. If you've never been to a midnight premiere or book release or concert of your favorite band, GO. See what you are a part of, because it is always much bigger than you think.

This is not me trying to make you like sports, or even the Broncos. And if you don't like sports or the Broncos, we can still be friends, it's not a deal-breaker. But if you are reading this and can think of a time that you've viewed me with disdain because I cared about the Broncos game, the latest regeneration, or George RR Martin's latest slaughter, I am asking that you never do that again. Because this is how I'm getting through college. This is how I keep myself from going crazy in the monotony of pre-med and serving soup and salad. I am asking you to understand escapsism.

That's why I like football. That's why I am a fan, not just of football, but of all of my fandoms. They keep me interested, and that keeps me going. It keeps me from railing against suburbia and the limitations that come with becoming a doctor.

Speaking of all my fandoms, I am a member of quite a few. If you're ever bored, send me a message, I love debating minutia or even just sharing in reactions. If you want to introduce me to a new one, I'm up for it. Clearly, I think they're fun. 




ONE LAST THING

I couldn't find a good place for this, so it goes at the bottom. Hehehe, bottom.

*There's also a fandom of reality TV or soap operas or Hollywood in general, which I haven't gotten into, not quite my demographic, but I don't blame anyone who gets into that. Escapism is a thing, and that's okay.