No, You Were Not "Born" A Fan

As many of my friends know, I love sports. I love watching them, reading about them, wearing clothing associated with them and can talk about sports for hours. Whether it’s a big home run hit by Alex Rodriguez, a solid tackle made by Ray Lewis or the passion a guy like Kobe Bryant brings each time he has the basketball, I can talk about it all. No one’s a thorough expert on games, but a lot of us can speak on sports for hours. (I’m sure my brother and sister might disagree since they’re more casual about it than anything.)

I’m also pretty passionate about the teams I follow. I have been a New York Yankees fan for 30 years, a New York Jets fan for 23 years and have followed the New York Knicks and Rangers for 25 years each. I’ll probably root for these teams until my time on this planet is over.

But I was not “born” a fan of these teams. And frankly, you were not born a fan of the teams you follow. I know it’s a silly expression that’s usually used to espouse your deep devotion to a team. But it’s kind of annoying to me.

Yet I’ve heard it mentioned by friends, colleagues and other associates for years.
“Yeah, I was born a Redskins fan!” (Heard from a young lady I used to see.)
“Oh, no doubt, I was born a Dodgers fan!” (Heard from an old college friend.)
“ You know it! Lakers since the day I was born!” (Heard from a guy I knew in Virginia.)

Stop it. No, you weren’t.

No matter how many autographs you have, how many different jerseys of your favorite team you own, no matter how many games of that team you’ve watched, you didn’t pop out of your mother’s womb chanting “Let’s Go Giants!”

Pardon me for being a smart-ass, but here’s how you really became a fan of your team.
- You grew up living in or near the city/state the team represents. (Most people are this way and I’m happy about that.)
- Your dad, mom, uncle, cousin or other relative was a big fan of a particular team and you followed suit.
- Your uncle rooted for a particular team, so to piss him off, you became a fan of the rival team. (I’ve heard this from two different people. No lie.)
- You liked the colors of a particular team’s uniforms or the look of their logo. (I’ve heard this from at least five people.)
- You liked a particular player for his or her ability or what they stood for. (My mother, God rest her soul, was a Dodgers fan because of Jackie Robinson and his being the first black player in Major League Baseball. I have no qualms about this. Nor should you.)
- A hometown hero played on a certain team, so you and everyone else in town became fans of that team. (Now you know why there are so many Yankees fans in Commerce, Oklahoma. Their most famous native son is Mickey Mantle.)
- You saw a certain team on television a lot because they’d won a lot and they became familiar faces to you. (Another reason why there are so many Yankees fans. And why there are more Boston Red Sox fans now. The latter is a lot more detestable. Trust me.)
- You became attached because they play a style that appeals to you. (Whether it’s a strong, physical defense or an exciting, pass-happy offense.)

There are other reasons, too. Maybe you dated a girl (or a guy) and they liked a particular team, so that team became your favorite. Maybe you hate that previous love interest and root for the team he or she hates the most. Yeah, that’ll show ‘em!

Regardless, you did not come to be a fan of the teams you like because it was preordained. That’s especially true for people who live in cities or states with more than one team in a given professional sport. Like New York, for example. As a Brooklyn native, I could have gone any number of ways in my allegiances in the four major sports. To many outsiders, I should have been a Mets fan since the Mets are “supposed to be” the team that folks in Brooklyn and Queens root for. But most of the kids I grew up with were Yankees fans. And this was in the 1980s, when the Yankees were mostly mediocre and the Mets were the “cool” team with Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez. No one would have blamed us for being fans of the Amazin’s had we said so. I became a Yankees fan at 4 years old for only two reasons and neither had to do with a history of championships. One was because they were a New York team and I was a New Yorker. (Hell, I still am! No matter where I am.) The second? I thought Rick Cerone and Graig Nettles looked awesome in those pinstriped uniforms…in a McDonald’s television commercial. (If I recall correctly, if you bought certain food from Mickey D’s, you could get a Yankees hat for 79 cents. Hey, I was four! Don’t you judge me!) Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield pretty much solidified my Yankee fandom. There’s no turning back now.

I became a Knicks fan for that same loyalty to New York and because Bernard King, a Brooklyn native, was on the team. I had made that choice when I was 10 years old, seeing Knicks game on WOR-TV, Channel 9. (Remember when Knicks games came on free TV?) The love for my city also factored into my being a Rangers fan, but a snotty kid I met at a learning center further fueled it. This kid, named Jacob, loved the New York Islanders, the Rangers’ primary rivals. Whenever hockey was mentioned, he would always say negative stuff about the Rangers. He had a right to gloat, I guess, seeing as how his dad was a big Isles fan and the Al Arbour-coached team had won four straight Stanley Cup championships. Still, I didn’t like hearing someone talk bad about a team from New York. I got into hockey, checked out the Rangers for myself on TV and thought, “I like these guys! I’m gonna cheer for them.”

My allegiance to the Jets is probably the most humorous – or painful, depending on how you view things. In 1986, I didn’t like football that much. Baseball was my true sports thing. Eventually, I started taking to football, but I liked both the Jets and the Giants, still proud of my city as I could ever be. But in New York, that’s a no-no. The unwritten rules are you pick one team and follow them. (Although there's not nearly the angst between Jets fans and Giants fans as there is with Yankees fans and Mets fans, the rule still applies.) The Jets went to the playoffs that year, but lost to the Browns in a divisional playoff game. A game any Jets fan worth his salt will tell you - when he’s calm, of course - that the Jets had won for damn sure. The Giants? Well, they went on to win Super Bowl XXI over the Denver Broncos. If I was going to pick one, this was easy, right?

Right?

I didn't want to feel like I was taking the easy way into football, just bandwagoning my way on to a winning team. So at 12 years old and expecting a promising football future, I became a fan of Gang Green. I didn’t know then that the choice would lead to disgust, anguish and tons of teasing from my college buddies more than two decades later. Thanks for nothing, Ken O’Brien!

So why did I decide to craft this wonderful piece of writing? No real reason. Except to tell you and anyone that calls himself or herself a sports fan that you learned to become a fan of the teams you follow. Looks, mannerisms, that laugh your mom has that you share? Those are hereditary.

The teams you came to love? Not so much.