aka

Post something about your fandom that would surprise others.

effort.

maybe no one's got anything that surprising.

Rockets not the Lakers. Once they traded Moses I jumped ship.

but became a huge fan of Hakeem in middle school.

knows every factoid about Hakeem, even traveled to Houston just to visit where he used to play

he used to tell me all the dudes on his block even called him Hakeem

I thought it was a nice story but then I met them

They really did all called him Hakeem

That's some serious olajuwan fandom

was Byron Scott. Was the only kid I knew who liked Byron above all other lakers.

If you caught me in the driveway I was Byron Scott running through 2 double screens to hit the twenty footer game winner

But my favorite was when Van Exel, Threatt, and Peeler all had the bald head and knee high socks

I mean as die hard as a 9 year old can get.

I was souped to get the Walter Payton Kangaroos. I had the black and white joints. And my boys even talk about me wearing one black and one white one on Field Day.

I still got some big ass Chicago Bears yearbook from when they won the Super Bowl.

Had the Bears starter cap and satin jacket.

Sent in the proofs of purchases and check to get the William Perry G.I. Joe action figure.

All of that.

Then Walter left. Ditka left.

It wasn't the same.

I rocked with them a bit during the Neal Anderson years.

Then left for the Raiders and haven't looked back since.

but as the world becomes "globalized" and technology driven a lot more of our students are no longer fans of their home team.

When I was young, I was the exception as a Rockets fan You had a couple guys here and there who mighta been Knicks fans cause their dad grew up in NY, but now when I poll my students on what teams they follow the distribution is all over the place. A lot of it has to do with where the stars are, but things are trending away from traditional home teams--esp in a city like NY where there are now so many transplants.

But yea last week I was chatting with 4 5th graders at lunch we had a knick fan, 2 heat fans and a laker fan.

i wasn't able to watch the games.

>but as the world becomes "globalized" and technology driven a
>lot more of our students are no longer fans of their home
>team.

With free agency and the social media, you don't have to be in your home town to show support. Plus it's hard work being the fan of a losing team. It's easier to just jump on somewhere else.

starting off I liked the Steelers based off the Mean Joe Coke commercial and my mom had bought me a Steelers jacket because it was on clearance.

I hopped on the Bears bandwagon in 85, but I also fell in love with the Giants that next year. I rooted for the Skins in their SB years too, I basically rooted for whichever NFC team was on top except the Niners, I never really liked them although I rooted for Eric Wright because he went to my high school. I hated Cowboys at first but I was a fan of Jimmy Johnson's Hurricane teams so I low key rooted them when he took over and I wanted them to knock of SF but I never considered myself a "Cowboy fan".

The football Cardinals were always a joke to me when were in St Louis but when they left it sucked not having an NFL team. The Rams showed up in 95, I moved back to St Louis in 97 after I left active duty. I used to see them dudes out in clubs all the time, the running joke around town was that if they spent as much time studying their playbooks as they did in the club they might win more. Tony Banks was the ringleader, that dude way ALWAYS out everywhere and the local media rode him about it pretty hard. He actually had his own club for a minute, Toby Wright did too. All those dudes were hella cool back then, plus fresh out of the military I was still in top physical shape and a lot of dumbass groupie broads would think I was on the team too when I was around those guys, lol.

Kids will be kids...they will root for teams for god knows whatever reason.

i switched over at around 13..went from a 'diehard' bulls fan with jordan posters and caps to a diehard loser ass knicks fan lolol.

i thank and curse my brother for making me switch every day.


it is great though to be a fan of the team of the city that you are currently in. During knicks and giants playoff time you literally feel it in the air.

is because of my pops. He was born in Little Rock and they didn't have a football team, obviously, so he really didn't root for anyone. When he went into the Army after high school, he was stationed at Fort Sill, OK and everybody there was a Cowboys/Sooner fan. He passed it down to me. That's all I knew in my house on Saturdays and Sundays. Never caught on with the Sooners, but been a Cowboy fan since I was old enough to know what football was.

and most other people that started following the NBA in the early 90's.

The Sixers sucked back then and had just drafted Shawn Bradley, and everyone around me like the Bulls, so I just followed suit.

Those first couple of years, I thought the NBA & ESPN was trying to shove him down our throat without him earning it. I thought they waaaay overhyped his first pro game (Dude scored 25 points in a game where they lost to the Kings by 14, and ESPN treated it like it Jordan dropping 63). I hated the manufactured "controversy" of him not making the All-Star Game (there was talk that Stern should have made an executive decision and put him onto the East's roster). I thought it was bullshit that he won the ROY instead of Carmelo (still believe this, Anthony got his team to the play-offs with a much better record and had better individual numbers).

Don't know when I came around. I know it was before the huge play-off game against the Pistons, but I can't pin-point it exactly.

Behind Ewing and Magic
When he said that shit about Magic I was done with him

I had the green starter jacket, and got me some Cambridge puss and didn't know how to act.

Everyone knows that the Lakers are THE team in LA, but back when I was growing up in Long Beach in the 90s, being a Laker or Clipper fan wasn't quite the either/or proposition it is today, mostly cause the Clippers were so goddamn terrible. And I've definitely followed the Clippers for a long time, I could actually go to their games cause I could actually afford them, I used to see them around cause both my dad and I played rec league ball where they practiced (which was at the time at Veteran's Park in Carson, close to where I grew up), and I remember watching those awesome Lawler/Walton broadcasts during the Lamond Murray days.

But I definitely enjoyed those Eddie Jones/Nick Van Exel Lakers, right up around the Shaq threepeat (I realize this makes me sound like a total Lakers hipster). Sometime around then though, my quiet Laker fandom turned into mostly indifference. I'm not sure if it's cause I got tired of the Shaq/Kobe melodrama, or watched my out of town friends in college jump on the bandwagon and ride way harder than I ever did, or just got used to message board/sports radio culture, but I watch Laker games with the indifference I'd watch, say a Bulls game now. I might laugh a bit at the schadenfreude of their season this year, but I ain't here to pile on, and I'll defend dudes like Pau or Odom when I think Laker fans are going too hard. I enjoy talking ball with some of the Laker fans I know personally but I ain't going to no victory parade.

The USC thing is easier to explain. I always leaned UCLA cause I liked the O'Bannons and JJ Stokes and Tommy Maddox, but I didn't have any real ties to either school growing up, so I liked seeing USC do good too. Once I went to UCLA that was a wrap, though I don't really have any hate towards USC except when we play them or I sense they might win a championship.

Used to love that broadcasting fuckin team...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqEQxMLrpMw

My Clipper fandom has never made me a Laker hater. Magic was my first favorite player. I've hated Jordan since the Bulls beat the Lakers in the finals. I've never purchased or worn anything Jordan brand because of it.

Gary Payton is my favorite athlete of all time.

Your team falls back and you've got to find something to keep you interested.

I was a huge Hornets fan for a period in there. I guess at the time it was very common for expansion teams to be popular in marketing and apparel and stuff. I really liked the Hornets, even with like Tripucka, Chapman and Curry but especially when they had LJ, Zo, Gill, Muggsy, et al. I liked them pretty much their whole run in Charlotte, although obviously the last several seasons I was watching 80+ Sixers games a year since I finally could.

I also really liked the Montreal Expos, which was weird since they never won shit either and generally scorched the Phillies. For a while I kind of liked the Cubs and Braves because they had Greg Maddux.

The NFL I have always been pretty straightforward, you learn to hate fast lol.

Probably the strangest thing is that growing up my two favorite hockey players were Mario Lemieux and Dominik Hasek, two major rivals of the Flyers. I just loved watching those guys play and still do to this day. It's really rare I feel that way about a rival, even the ones I respect (Larry Bird, Emmitt Smith, et al) I don't really like.

fortunately I came to my senses and became a Yankees fan

Both of my parents went to MSU, and they are still hardcore to the point of not letting my son wear Michigan gear over there when he visits. So I was a State fan through the mid-90's and then I got accepted to Michigan and decided to go there. My freshman year was 97 with the championship team, and I've been been blue since then.

in Chicago.
in public.

it wasn't mine, it was my brother in laws who moved to WI and became a fucking Cheesehead.

but it was cold.
and i was broke.

So...I knowingly and willingly wore Packers gear for an entire winter.

I'm so fucking ashamed.

D

Before the Panthers became a team in Columbia,SC they would show Redskins game all the time. I was young and dumb. Then around 96-98 I just bandwagon Cowboys/Packers. Finally in 98 the Raiders draft Charles Woodson which was the "THE MAN" at Michigan. So I been rocking the Silver and Black ever since.

As for NBA I was diehard Hornets fan until they move to New Orleans. Baron Davis was my favorite player and had a Basa-like agenda that he was better than Nash(pre-injury). He went to Golden-State and started cysing the Warriors. I also follow the Clippers during the Brand/Odom/Richardson era. So when Baron went to the Clip Show, they became my new team.