"My top 5 biggest assholio sports fans -- 1. Yankees 2. Maryland 3. Any Philly sport aside from baseball (because there are only 4 Phillies fans) 4. Ohio State 5. UConn"
Obviously this is a great idea for a list, and I hope we get lots of contributors in the comments. Although there may be some universals (I would suspect Yankees fans will get a lot of votes) I am also curious about regional variation -- I know Tom has nothing good to say about Denver Broncos fans, for example, and Brian, if he weighs in, will have his opinions on Texas A&M, and I hope we get a Jaime appearance on San Francisco or Arizona fans.
This list is not for those who are bad fans because of apathy (can't we just give those dishonors to fans of just about any pro sport in Miami, Atlanta, and LA?) but rather because of boorishness, obnoxiousness, and loathesomeness. Think of this list as the sports equivalent of coyote ugly -- you'd rather gnaw off your arm than be trapped in a room with these people. Here is my list, always subject to change:
1) Yankees fans. Just simply the worst. New York fans tend to forget that for all but a small percentage, sports fandom is fungible -- 70% of Yankees fans are also fans of other New York teams, the others jump from bandwagon to bandwagon -- part of their evil. Other New York teams suck. Yet this does not temper the obnoxiousness of the entire Yankees fan subculture. Hey, Yankees, fan -- who are your favorite football, basketball, and college teams? Yeah, I thought so.
2) Ohio State fans. And this is not simply the function of this past weekend, though before the game I was shocked and dismayed that Texas fans are such good hosts -- outnumbered outside of the stadium by roughly 20-1, had those OSU fans acted like they did in the northeast or rust belt midwest they would have ended up as bloodied stumps. I couldn't help but notice that they were a lot more quiet on the way out of the stadium after seeing a slew of of big, hostile Texas fans full of tailgating juice. Twenty beers has a way of moderating hospitality. But beyond that, my freshman college roommate was a diehard Ohio State fan, and that is usually enough to push anyone over the edge. But then I lived in Ohio for a few years. I learned quickly why the Fabulous Sports Babe, who used to have a nationally syndicated radio show, would not take calls from Columbus. They are odds-on favorites to win this year's national championship. This is not good. In my book mOhio State fans are closer to Yankees fans than you might imagine. I at least know some tolerable diehard Yankees fans, and I know a lot of smart Yankees fans. I honestly cannot say as much for many Buckeye boosters.
3) Eagles fans. Passion is the most important aspect to being a fan. But by having as a key part of their identity a pridefulness in being reactionary jerks, Philadelphia fans have sort of forgotten the key to it all. Sports real are supposed to be fun, and while anger sometimes is part of being a fan, when it is your whole shtick, well, that makes you both an unpleasant lout and a crappy fan. Philadelphia fans (and the national media, which fuels the average Philadelphian's idiocy) have confused prickishness with passion. I know you love to tell it all the time, Philly fan, but we really are not impressed that you once booed Santa Claus at an Eagles game. You realize that it wasn't the real Santa Claus, right?
4) Buffalo fans. I know this one may not register for most people. Buffalo? Really? Really. I've only known obnoxious Buffalo fans. And when the Bills were good they were insufferable. Even losing Super Bowls four years in a row did not shut them up. A Buffalo guy lived on my floor freshman ear of college. We went up to the AFC Championship game in 1991, which was Bo Jackson's last game in uniform and which the Bills won 51-0. before the game, the tailgating was fun, but Bills fans threw beer bottles at anyone wearing Raiders gear. I'm all about making the opposing fans miserable, but throwing bottles at them before the game? Back to the Suck for you. These, by the way, are my favorite kinds of awful fans. They arise seemingly out of nowhere, enjoy a brief period in which they have no idea how to handle themselves, and then they slink back to their holes. But you always know they are there. the fact that Buffalo will always suck is solace enough for those of us who had to put up with them at their absolute apex, which was still a place in all-time sporting ignominy. Four Super Bowl losses in a row, two of them among the worst blowouts in the history of the game, another a gag job in which they were favored heavily. Good work.
5) Redskins fans. These egregious frontrunners tend to be so dopey that they rub things in your face before they have actually won anything. I lived in DC when the Skins hired Spurrier. You would have thought that the redskins had acbieved a return to greatness right then and there. So that falls apart, and Redskins fans manage to accomplish the seemingly impossible -- maintain their obnoxiousness while jumping en masse off the bandwagon. So of cousrse chastened by the Spurrier debacle (and by the way, I have always been of the belief that given enough time Spurrier may have succeeded in the NFL) what do Redskins fans do when the team hires Joe Gibbs back? Yup -- taunting galore. I derived great schadenfreude over reading the Washington Post on Mondays after Redskin losses, which was rather often.
I welcome your contributions.
21 comments:
Derek captured Yankees fans perfectly. In this day and age, I pretty much expect that when you are at the stadium of your team and the visiting team has fans there that a certain subsection of them are going to be giant assholios. I'd bet a lot of people will throw Sox fans on their list. Maryland rolls in at number 2 on my list. While I witnessed boorish behavior from them on many occassions at Duke hoops games they shot up the chart when I went to the 2001 final four in Minneapolis where Maryland, Duke, Michigan State and Arizona were playing. Almost everywhere we went in Minneapolis that weekend we saw Maryland fans acting inappropriately. I don't mind walking around, showing your team colors, cheering for your team at random times and random places, but I can't tell you how many times I saw Maryland fans berating someone wearing the gear of some other team and often times the person being berated, usually with profanity, was a 12 year old or younger kid who was just there with his parents. I remember being at a bar the night before the title game and talking to some Arizona fans and them basically echoing the same feelings saying "we had heard they were bad, but you never really know what that means until you witness it." Of course, you are talking about a student body population that seems to riot an awful lot. Lose in the final four--riot! Win the national title--riot!!
Thunderstick --
Yeah, I assume we'll get some people who put Red Sox or Patriots, mostly to piss me off. And there are certainly obnoxious Sox and Pats fans. No one can doubt that. But I am looking for fans that have a reputation for being jerks, or that someone has enough enecdotes about to make a comprehensive case. Maryland fans did become pretty bad during that run they had, and as a Dukie you must have found it much more acute.
I might also follow up with a list of good fans, because I don't want it to seem as if I hate all fans who aren't ones of my own teams. Beyond Sox and Pats fans, off the top of my head I would put Cards baseball, Twins, U Texas, Penn State. I would want to put Cleveland football, except living in a state exposes you to a lot of the nimrods as well, and OU had more than its share of unbearable Browns (and Indians) fans, but I still would be inclined to rate them simply because they are passionate, and some of my best friends are really good Browns fans. South Carolina football fans are insanely loyal given the team for which they root. maybe we'll follow up depending on responses to this post.
dcat
I will say that having been to a million ACC and Big 10 college hoops and football games over the last 15 years due to my affiliations with Duke and Penn State, I've thought that the fans of almost all the schools I've seen have been good fans. In the ACC, the only school that I've had a negative experience was Maryland and in the Big 10, the only school has been Ohio State. The only school in either conference that I can't speak to is Miami as I've never been to a hoops or football game involving the Canes. But I have nothing but positive things to say about the general fan base I've encoutered from every other school in the Big 10 and ACC.
You think Penn State has good fans? Really? I mean, I am one, granted, but still, I think Penn State fans--specifically the students--are horrible.
To wit--
They're fickle little bastards.
They're drunks. Serious, serious drunks. Not charming drunks. Rioting, puking, bigoted little punk drunks.
Until very recently, they didn't know how to cheer. The student section used to be very loud when we were on offense and dead quiet when we were on defense.
And finally, during the prayer in remembrance of Sept. 11 before the Notre Dame game, I'm pretty sure I heard a few choruses of "We are . . . Penn State."
Granted, the lifelong Penn State fans are much better than the students: they're loyal, informed, and largely sober. But at football games, those great fans are too often overshadowed by the drunken students.
I've been to probably 30 games in Happy Valley and while there are certainly that fraction of students who are way too drunk to be at a game, I don't think that number is any greater than what you see at any big football game at a state school. I always thought the fans in the stands were very well behaved.
I think we should probably forgive drunk fans at college football games. Jeez.
My answer got kind of long, so I put it up at Cleveland '64.
I cannot believe I forgot Notre Dame. Into the top 5 with a bullet.
dcat
Sorry, but I have to put Red Sox fans up near number one on the list. Any team whose fans - like Dallas as "America's Team" - refers to it as the geographical center of the sport - i.e., "Red Sox Nation" - are ridiculous and deserve a Bronx cheer. Especially when they're whining about the payroll of the Yankees.
Go Padres.
Oh, and pretty much every college has drunken fans. Penn State is hardly the worst.
Yes, every college has drunken fans, but our drunken fans have been known to make racist, homophobic comments, in the stands, out in the parking lot, and downtown. I didn't attend anywhere near 30 games, but I lived in State College for six years, and my experience with Penn State fans is that they're obnoxious. If they're no worse than fans elsewhere, then god help elsewhere.
There is no grosser fan than that of the Oakland Raiders (you guys are so friggin' east coast biased it makes me think I'm watching ESPN). They are loud and obnoxious, dim and uneducated, probably on parole and crack (drunkeness is the least of their charms), big, hairy, dress like idiots who have never grown up, notoriously faithful to the point of absolute ignorance about the game, and smelly. Seriously, watch a Raider game and see how many times the camera pans into the endzone crowd to show idiots dressed up like pirates, Darth Vader and/or cannibals spewing beer laden, expletive riddled diatribes at the nearest person no matter what their allegiance.
Dodger fans. 'Nuff said.
Giants fans. I am one, but I recognize our assholishness. I once saw a drunken Giants bleacher bum yell and scream at a 70 year old grandmother to the point of tears for cheering for the A's. Gross. We are bitter about 2002, 1960, Barry, Dusty, and all the fog and wind.
That's all I got.
Helmut --
But the Red Sox do not claim to be the nation's team like the Cowboys did. Instead they claim that their fans make up a sort of nation of fans. Don't believe it? Go to a game where the Red Sox are the visiting fans anywhere. The Sox fans will number in the thousands. Go to that same team's games once the Sox are out of town. the red Sox Nation is nothing like the idea of America's Team. You cannot realistically deny that the Red Sox (and, yes, the Yankees) are tremendously popular. The point of the list isn't simply to dump on a popular team or a team whose fans are loyal. It is to dump on a particular type of fan.
dcat
I lied. Lakers fans are horribly ignorant as well. Anybody who thinks they can honestly compare Kobe to Jordan is obviously an idiot. Not in any facet of the game or life is Kobe on par with MJ. Is he good? Of course. Is he great? Yes. Will he attain the status that Jordan has. Never.
Greg --
Don't blame us for being east Coast biased -- we're only biased inasmuch as we are speaking from exprience, and if we live in the east or in the central, that is what we will talk about. That's why I wanted as many people as possible to contribute.
As Tom says about the Raiders' fans, what is annoying about them is the fact that they think that by wearing a Darth Vader mask and fake shoulder pads they make up an intimidating presence.
As for the Dodgers, I'm not sure their fans are boorish (Lakers fans tend to be, though -- they have a pseudo national following that tends to be very fickle) so much as apathetic.
dcat
That's kind of the problem with anecdotal accounts. I was at Penn State for four years for a doctorate. I even went to several footbal games. I always found the fans good-spirited and fair. Of course, after a win, the frat houses would erupt into drunken paroxysms of car-tipping.
Conversely, in my own experience, Red Sox fans are boorish, obnoxious about somehow knowing more about baseball than anyone else, and spend a lot of time whining about the Yankees payroll when they're damn close to it, especially compared to a team like my own Padres. I have no patience for that. The Red Sox Nation thing is imaginary. Basically, one see caps elsewhere of all those teams that are most televised because they're in the big markets - this includes the Braves, the Cubs, the Dodgers, and the Yankees. I don't know how one comes to some numerical conclusion that only Boston has the "Nation," except if you're a Boston fan in the first place, which is a bit of a QED.
There are, of course, always exceptions to generalizations from individual experience.
Helmut - I again have to disagree. Travel across the country. Sad as I am to admit it, you'll see more Yankee hats than anyone else by quite a way. But second by a long shot is the red Sox. Are many of those bandwagon jumpers? Of course. But even before the Red Sox won the World Series this was true.
As for payroll issues, I'll just put it this way -- the Red Sox payroll is closer to that of the Orioles and Blue Jays than it is to the Yankees. And yeah, on the whole I'd say that Red Sox fans, like Cardinals fans and a sizeable percentage of Yankees fans, are more knowledgable about baseball than most. It's a baseball city with a deep and abiding tradition. Again, if you are claiming that Red Sox fans simply are more passionate than other fans, you are wrong, and I again encourage you to go to a game when the Sox are the visiting team.
Boston has "the nation" because it has identified the nation which is exactly what nationalism is. Again, there are facts that support this, whether it is the amount Sox fans are willing to pay to watch their team, whether it is the number of books bought and purchased in whe wake of them winning the title, or simply the number of books about the red Sox period, by number of fans who show up for away games, murchandise bought, consecutive sellouts, or any other factor. You can try to say with a straight face that Padres fans are just as passionate. But that ain't the case. I'm sure you can make a case for a secret "Padres Nation," but if that is the case, you'll have to explain why at interleague games against the Sox and Yankees Petco's brown and yellow clad loyaliets were routinely drowned out by the fans of the visitors.
The Red Sox Nation "thing" is not imaginary, or else you would not be able to write about it. Again, deny the reality of a fan's phenomenon and pretend that all fans are equally passionate. But if this is a fool's assertion, and it is, then you have to admit that even if you find them obnoxious, Sox fans are more passionate than most.
dcat
Ahh yes, there you go -- a Yankees fan who cannot see past his team being ranked number one by a number of people not getting the larger point of the exercise. Good to see the effort of the top five list, Holmes! By the way, remind me who your favorite NBA basketball team is again?
dcat
Apparently you've never been to Yankee Stadium. You want to see classy, I'd suggest spending an afternoon in the upper deck in left field. (PS -- it was actually the Yankees' fans who started the "swallows" trend, as a response to the "Yankees Suck" t-shirts at fenway. But don't let facts get in the way of your argument. you wouldn't be a Yankee fan if you did!)
dcat
Holmes --
A higher standard than what? Than yankees fans? last time I was in the upper deck in left field at yankee Stadium a massive brawl broke out after a young father asked a drunk musclehead to stop calling him a "fucking puissy" in front of his daughter, who could not have been more than five. the musclehead, predictably, punched the father, and two red Sox fans (also huge musleheads) stepped in to stop the guy. New York's finest? Literally turned their backs.
My experiences in both Yankee Stadium and fenway have been the same: 90% great fans, knowledgable, know how to give shit without being dicks. 10% in both places? Utter dickheads. The cheaper the seats, the worse the behavior.
I'll also note that you've needled me at least a dozen times in public about this year's Sox team. Not a Yankees fan in the world can point to a phone call, email, letter, or telegram from me saying a thing in the two months after the Yankees' collapse. This is indicative of my experience of Yankees fans. 90% would not sucker punch a father with his kids there; 95% don't know when enough is enough. 99% forget about the rest of the sports calendar.
dcat
(By the way, my word verification code for this comment? dgsht -- add some vowels and that sums it up.)
It's official:
http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/story/9659269
Paul gets the savvy reader award of the day!
dcat
Post a Comment