By Michael Smith for GForce Sports
Pound his face in! Go, go, go, go! Kill him! Yeah!
So, let’s play some audio “Where’s Waldo.” Picture a 30-year-old guy saying the above invective. Where is he? Perhaps he’s a fan boy at a premiere for The Hunger Games? No, moviegoers are more likely to be talking loudly on cell phones and saying things like, “And Rihanna did what, girlfriend?” How about a boxing match? Yeah, I can see that. And probably appropriate too given the bet he has riding at MGM. Maybe at a football game? Sure. The center probably has those very words running through his head before the snap. A hockey game? Absolutely.
Actually, it’s probably all of the above except “A”. When have you NOT gone to a sporting event and heard something along those lines? You know who this is. At a hockey game, he’s in row one in a Bob Probert jersey – a liter cup of Molson in hand – pounding on the glass with Nick Lidstrom on the other side thinking, “Buddy, give it a rest.” At a football game, he’s pounding kielbasa and sauerkraut (and the back of his best bud Stosh) as he bellows the team fight-song and ogles the cheerleaders. Boxing? Who knows what they’re eating but the blood and invective are the same.
These creatures are a fixture in the arena and stadium, a species born to live in that environment. We all know them by a not quite four-letter word:
The FAN.
I’ll admit it. I’ve been one too, mostly at Michigan State football and Red Wing hockey games. And there were the brief college years at Western Michigan in the 80s when the only teams with a winning record were men’s hockey and women’s volleyball. No joke, my first college athletic experience was an NCAA quarterfinal women’s volleyball game between WMU and Nebraska. WMU won and it was pandemonium. And, yes, I was in row one for men’s hockey, pounding the glass and Jim Culhane was probably on the other side of the glass thinking, “Jesus, give it a rest.” What can I say? It was fun. It was exciting. And Jim was cute.
What is it that makes a person a fan? Think about the septuagenarians who drive their green and white Prevost bus to the Michigan State campus every football Saturday; or the autoworker wearing a Styrofoam wedge of cheddar and a Farve jersey to a Packers game; or the perky blonde in the PGA polo with a fake tattoo of Tiger Woods on her cheek – okay, she may be more than a fan given his history – but, you see my point. What’s gotten into these people?
Some fans are obviously alumni of a given school or university. But look at, say, a Miami University hockey game. Some of those fans are eleven or twelve; some are, perhaps, aspiring players but others are just rabid spectators pounding on the glass. Unless they’re Doogie Howser, they’re not alumni. Maybe that’s one answer; fans aspire to be like the athletes they follow.
What about pro team fans? Well, there’s the obvious civic pride. Look at what the Detroit Red Wings have done for their city. It’s rechristened Hockeytown for a reason, and who wouldn’t want to get behind that? But the Red Wing diaspora stretches across North America so being a fan is more than geographic; there is an emotional connection between fan and team. Evidence? Look at a fan’s tears when their team loses and their exuberance after a big win.
Sports teams offer us a means of escape as well, a way to put aside the troubles of our lives and focus on something else. Or even BE someone else. Every team seems to have some oddball fan in the stands: the guy painted blue with a cape, or the old man leading Take Me Out to the Ball Game and waving his MLB regulation pennant. So it’s a chance to step outside yourself for a while (and be a Cheesehead while doing it).
Fans comprise ALL these things, and the LGBT fan perhaps even more so. We aspire to be great, to emulate heroic people. We embrace where we live – our families, our homes, our cities – and strive to make them better, and we hold on to those attachments even as others try to strip them away. And escape? Yeah, there are times we want to escape our lives and all the crap that’s dumped onto us. We’re only human.
Eh? Human? You mean like, straight people? Could it be we’ve discovered something that both LGBT and straight people share? A love of team? A commitment to winning?
Yes, LGBT folks connect to sports teams too. So the next time you see a Cheesehead, or a guy painted blue with a cape, or a gal yelling, “Hey ref? Are ya BLIND?” – he or she may be a gay fan. And the guy pounding on the glass with his best buddy Stosh? He may snuggle with Stosh every evening.
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