The Bandwagoners

*I was inspired by my previous post to write another one that is similar, but different, enjoy*

I have no problem with bandwagoners.

My only problem comes when people start to like a team just so they can be rude to you and rub it in your face that their team beat your team.

My roommates decided to have people over to watch one of the Laker vs Jazz games last year during the NBA playoffs. 

It turns out most people in Utah are Jazz fans, go figure. Before the game started, I was talking to some of the guys that had come to watch the game. We were discussing players and their stats. Of course, I knew way more about the Jazz then some of the Jazz fans did. They couldn’t even name 4 players on the team. Some of the guys even admitted to not really being true Jazz fans. I said that was ok and everyone has to start somewhere.

Then the game started and all hell broke loose. As the Lakers were slowly but surely beating the Jazz the environment in the house became more and more negative. Did I say anything? Did I gloat? No. I didn’t have the chance to because these guys that I had talked to before started to personally attack me. They were sick of making fun of the Laker players and decided to turn it on me. They told me that I sucked, that I was going to hell for cheering for the Lakers, and I was a raper lover. 

What?! Are you serious?! 

First of all, I don’t suck. I wasn’t playing the game. Second, I not going to hell for cheering for my team... bottom line. Third, just because I like the Lakers doesn’t mean I support Kobe and his act of adultry (he didn’t rape her… let’s not discuss this now). Those guys were just being jerks because they could. I was offended, not necessiarly because of what they said, but because they said it to someone they didn’t know AT ALL and I had NOTHING to do with the Lakers beating the Jazz. Nothing.

The point of all this is that you should be a fan and support your team. You should NOT, however, personally attack people because they support their own team. I’m not playing the game. I’m not beating your team. I have nothing to do with whether or not my team wins. So leave me alone. Insult the players and the coach, I’ll stand up for them and tell you why I think they rock. But I won’t tolerate people being rude to me because of who I cheer for.

It goes the same way with the BYU-UofU rivalry. 

I’ll meet people and they’ll ask me where I went to college. I’ll tell them BYU and they all say the same thing: “Oh …really…” But they say it in the smug stupid voice. Do I love it when BYU beats the U? Yes. Did I think it was great that the U won the Sugar Bowl? Yes. Am I going to 

be rude to someone I don’t know because they went to a different school then me? Come on now. I’m old enough to know that that shouldn’t matter.

One of my really good friends is a die-hard Sacramento Kings fan. The Kings-Laker rivary is nasty. The teams just loathe each other. Sure, my buddy and I tease eachother when our teams win, we’ll even make bets (just dinner) on the games, but it’s not personal and we both know that.

I think sports are getting ruined by the people that proceed to take the games way to far. They are games, they are just games. Games are fun, games are supposed to be fun. Stupid people that don’t know what they are talking about are usually the ones who ruin all the fun for me. And yes, I follow the Lakers religiously: if the games aren’t on TV then I follow the stats on my computer, I get sad when they lose, I wear my Kobe and Gasol jerseys to work, I have a Laker sticker on my car, I can name all the players on the team and tell you some of their stats, I know when trades happen, the Lakers home page is my computer homepage, etc. With all this said, I do know that my life will go on and I’ll be fine if the Lakers loose, maybe a little sad, but I’ll live.

Go, now, support your team. If you don’t have one and you want to be a bandwagoner then I’ll support you. 

Or if you want to start cheering for the underdog, I’ll support you there too. 

Let’s just be friends, ok?