What is a Fan?

Four year old Anthony is watching Super Bowl XLV with his Mom, Dad and two sisters - all Steelers fans. With ten minutes left in the game, and the Steelers looking like they might come from behind, Anthony lost his battle with exhaustion and fell asleep - wearing not only his Steelers pajamas but also his Steelers helmet.

Monday morning he awoke unaware that his Steelers came up short in their bid for a seventh Super Bowl title and asked his mom if he could wear his Steelers jersey to pre-school.

Fighting tears, his mom told him he could, "but you know they lost," she said, hoping it wouldn't break her son's young heart too badly.

As he looked at his mother, his big brown eyes watered up and he said, with the innocence only available in children..."There's going to be a lot of sad people in the world today."

Anthony probably doesn't know it yet - but at the age of four he is already walking a road blazed by millions before him. A road paved with equal numbers of championship trophies and broken hearts.

He is one of a special breed...he is a sports fan and like most young sports fans, the idea that there are people in the world rooting for a team other than his is simply inconceivable. Over time, the fan grows out of this mind set and it is replaced by other emotions, which we'll look at later.

Nevertheless, the sports fan is a different kind of person. Separated from the music fan, or the movie fan by one word...competition.

Movie aficionados may disagree over the decision to give the best actress Oscar to Elizabeth Taylor in 1960, but I'll bet fans weren't plunking down millions of dollars on the result.

Sure you'll see Elvis fans and Beatles fans debating who made the bigger contribution to music, but you'll rarely, if ever, see the debate escalate into a bar-room brawl.

Part of being a sports fan is carrying in your heart the knowledge that your team is the greatest. Notice I used the word "knowledge" - it isn't a feeling, it isn't something you think...it's something you know the way you know Sunday follows Saturday. For many, it almost seems as though it's encoded in their DNA. "My team is the greatest team ever, we (the fans of said team) are the most loyal and dedicated fans in the world and if we are not victorious, there is an evil, perhaps cosmic, conspiracy afoot."

Yes, if their team loses, fans must blame somebody...officials, coaches, managers, league executives - and in extreme cases, one of their own players (who is obviously disgruntled and wants to be traded so he's not giving his all).

When the fan speaks of his team there is only one pronoun - WE - for he is not some disconnected, nameless face in the stands...he is an integral part of the team. Just as he is useless without the team - the team is equally useless without him.

If you've ever worked in an office you have most likely worked with the guy (or girl) who seems to talk about nothing else but his/her team. They live and die with each game and even if you don't watch sports you can practically chart their team's performance based on the mood swings of the fan.

For the non-sports fan it is often unfathomable how a person can become so wrapped up in the performance of a team, after all...it's only a game.

Blasphemy! Only a game? Sure, like Hurricane Katrina was only some isolated showers.

What the fan sees as a way of life - others see as unhealthy obsession. The million-dollar question is; Where did it come from?

There is a theory in some psychological circles that rooting for a team is instinctive - left over from our ancient ancestors who would cheer for the warriors who battled to protect the village. Others believe the fans are searching for identity validation, self-esteem and escapism. We'll probably have a cure for the common cold before we know the real answer.

The origin of the word "fan" is not entirely clear...but the most commonly accepted explanation is that "fan" is a shortened version of "fanatic" - which means, in part, "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion" and is derived from the Latin "fanaticus, meaning "insanely but divinely inspired."

While different from the rest of the population, sports fans even differ among themselves. I have tried to come up with a convenient, albeit unscientific, list of fan types. The way I see it - there are eight types of fan...

The Non-fan - Technically not a sports fan, this person has very little, if any, interest in sports, couldn't care less who wins or loses and wouldn't know the difference between a pitch-out and a free-throw. Truly an enigma to most of the other types of fan and usually written off as brain-damaged.

The Casual fan - This is the person whose interest in the team is minimal throughout the season but rises when (if) the team reaches the post-season. They wouldn't know the team's star player if they tripped over him and to them being a fan is slightly more important than cleaning the toilet yet slightly less important than watching reality TV.

The Spousal fan - All those significant others who, if it weren't for the desire to support their partner, would probably be somewhere between non-fans and casual fans. Their support is admirable, if not genuine, and has even been known to cause a morph into "true fan" status.

The Bandwagon fan - Also known as "Fair Weather Fans" - The most disgusting creature imaginable to other fans...this person has no interest in "their" team until they win "the big one" - at which time this heinous poser will strut around like a peacock on steroids. The only player on the team they know is the headliner and only because they hear his name so often. In the eyes of other fans, this behavior is just short of child molestation.

The True fan - Probably the most common type of fan. He/she is consistent in their support of the team win, lose or draw, without being obnoxious. They may have a team logo displayed semi-prominently on their car and can usually name at least most of the starting line-up. Their devotion to the team is true, but stops short of physical sacrifice.

The Die-Hard fan - This is the guy who can tell you every notable fact about his team throughout history and even some not-so-notable ones. Ask him a trivia question about his team and you'll get a history lesson. In addition to the numerous bumper-stickers on his car, his cubicle is plastered with team memorabilia and he probably wears a piece of clothing with the team emblem on it at least once a week. If he doesn't have the team logo tattooed on his body it's probably because his job (or wife) forbids it.

The Obsessed-Parent fan - Best avoided, these people are not only a menace to society; their behavior has a ripple effect since their children are usually exposed to it early and often. You'll see them at youth sporting events all over and you'll hear them from four blocks away. They have no compunction about screaming at the coach from the stands when their child doesn't see enough action and they are the reason that youth sports officials should receive hazardous duty pay. (I have actually witnessed one such fan being taken from a little league baseball game in handcuffs when he became so unruly the police had to be called.)

The Extreme fan - Yeah - THAT guy... His co-workers hide from him when his team loses, his family leaves the house on game day and even his friends are very selective about asking him to join them for guy's night out. He would gladly exchange punches with rival fans and his kids usually endure brainwashing on par with the Hitler Youth.

The above categories aside, most sports fan feel a deep-rooted connection with their team. Psychologists have studied it and theorized about it for years using terms like role-identity theory, (individuals will base their actions on how they like to see themselves and how they like to be seen by others.) or social comparison theory, (individuals will strive to attach themselves to other individuals who are similar or slightly better.)

I guess the short answer is that fans look to be part of something and belong to a group of people who share a common interest.

Perfectly understandable...this type of behavior is common and can be seen everywhere from reading groups to gun clubs - with one difference, you'll probably never see a group of housewives exchanging high-fives or chest bumps after their favorite author hits number one on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Then you have the rivalries...there's a real head scratcher.

Some fans take team rivalries extremely personally - more so than the players do. The fact is, to most players, the sport is a job and the opposing teams are nothing more than that - the opposing team. To some fans though, the opposing team, and by extension their fans, are the enemy. They deserve no mercy and they'll get no respect (no matter how badly their team beats ours).

What starts as a good natured discussion about a game can easily lead to a full blown shouting match complete with four-letter words and nasty remarks about mothers. Punches aren't far-fetched either.

Compared to some such conflicts the Hatfield/McCoy feud was a heated discussion between Ghandi and Mother Teresa.

In some stadiums a fan takes his life in his hands by wearing the colors of the rival.

Violent outbursts and dangerous behavior are not limited to the rival fans though. Ask Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman, who had to be escorted by armed security officers from a Cubs game. His offense...he tried to catch a foul ball. A simple and reflexive act that every fan would attempt...except Bartman's effort (arguably) led directly to the Cubs' loss of the game and denied them a trip to the World Series. For this, his fellow Cubs fans threw food at him, doused him with beer, called him every name in the book and as the game drew near to an end, became increasingly threatening. Bartman was escorted from the field for his own safety and his name remains a curse among Cubs fans.

Which brings us to another fascinating aspect of being a sports fan...the mob mentality.

When the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Championship in 2010 their fans rioted in the streets of L.A., lighting fires, destroying cars, vandalizing businesses and beating each other up. Similar scenes have happened in many other cities as well.

There have been countless studies performed to shed light on why fans behave the way they do, usually blaming the combination of euphoria,adrenaline, testosterone, and alcohol.

When the evening news shows people in a middle eastern country rioting in the streets over some political agenda, Americans criticize them for being hostile, uncivilized and aggressive - yet in this country it has become common-place for sports fans to riot when their team wins a championship! (Logic would presume it to be more common after losing - but once again we're talking about sports fans.)

Don't ask the fans for an explanation of their behavior, you'll get any number of inane responses. On the other side of the coin - don't try to offer them an explanation either. Trying to explain the psychology of being a fan to a fan is like trying to explain the physics of a curve ball to the ball.

Odd behavior aside - do fans carry any clout?

Well - to quote Annie Savoy from the movie Bull Durham..." You get three ants together, they can't do dick. You get 300 million of them, they can build a cathedral."

And cathedrals they have built...sports stadiums have grown exponentially in the last hundred years to accommodate them . In 1904 Major League Baseball's Boston Americans (later to become the Boston Red Sox) had a total season fan attendance of 623,295. That's an average of 7,695 per game. In 2004 the Boston Red Sox season attendance was 2,837,304 - an average of 35,208 per game. Factor in to those figures the invention of television and it means games are viewed by literally millions of viewers. The numbers speak for themselves.

Fans can take credit for the exorbitant salaries players receive as well. Between gate receipts, merchandizing and TV contracts professional sports seems to be completely recession proof. Regardless of how bad the economy is, fans are not shy about donating money to the cause (if you include gambling they even donate to fringe causes).

You might think "Okay, so sports fans are different - but I'd rather be hooked on sports than drugs, at least being a fan won't kill me."

Not so fast. Let's put aside the tendency for fans to consume large quantities of alcohol and junk food while watching the game and look at this;

A German study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, examined heart attack trends among Germans during the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament compared to other times of the year. They found that on days the German team played, cardiac emergencies more than tripled for men and nearly doubled for women.

It isn't hard to imagine the stress some of these fans put on themselves and it isn't far-fetched to say it's unhealthy, but I suppose it is better than crack or heroin.

So where does all of this leave four-year-old Anthony?

Well, I guess it's time for Anthony to broaden his vocabulary and learn the creed of sports fans everywhere...

"Wait til next year!"