COLUMN: Sports fans know it’s great to hate
Doesn’t it feel great to hate? There are only three groups of people who have the right to make such a statement. They are:
a) Terrorists,
b) Ruthless dictators, or
c) Sports fans.
As far as terrorism is concerned, the worst thing I ever did was put honey on the ear piece of a pay phone, hide, then call it with a cell phone and laugh as the person put the sticky ear piece on their ear.
Once in middle school I started a Denver Broncos club and for a while, felt quite powerful as the club president, but that would not define me as a dictator.
So yes, I’ll eliminate the suspense, I am c) a sports fan.
A deep and irrational hatred lies within the heart of every sports fan. We know our hate is biased and irrational, but we don’t care. A word has been invented for such a feeling. The word is rivalry.
Jerry Seinfeld was right when he said all we are cheering for is laundry. If a player is traded from one team to another, we go from wanting to name our children after him to hating his guts-even if he had nothing to do with being traded. In essence, we are cheering for the uniforms, not the players wearing them.
For example, I don’t hold any personal ill will for Rich Gannon as a person. However, when he puts on that silver and black Oakland Raiders uniform, I look at him no differently than I would someone who had just poisoned my pet dog.
I have similar borderline psychotic and angry feelings for members of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Yankees and the Detroit Red Wings.
As many of you reminded me after my last column, I still have to work on my hatred for in-state rival BYU. I promise to do so.
I was reminded of these sometimes sweet and sometimes bitter feelings of a rivalry while watching the Colorado-Nebraska football game Friday. Growing up in Denver, you would always here Nebraska jokes whenever the Cornhuskers would come to town. Every year without fail, sometime within a week of the big game my dad would ask me “Hey, you know what the “N” on the Nebraska helmet stands for don’t ya? Knowledge,” referring to all of the brainiacs that make up the Nebraska football team. Not even their cheerleaders were safe from the verbal abuse. “What do you call a bunch of Nebraska cheerleaders in a sauna? Gorillas in the mist.”
The jokes were mostly harmless, but when they would continually beat us, the hatred I felt was real. That’s why Friday’s 62-36 butt kicking was so gratifying. The phone was ringing off the hook from family and friends throughout the game. Most of the conversations went something like this: “Ya, I know. Can you believe it? OK. Call me back.”
You see, this is why it is so great to hate. If I hated no one, then when my team won I would feel good for them, but sorry for the crying players on the other side. When the Yankees were crying after losing this year’s World Series did I say, “I’m glad the Diamondbacks won, but I sure do feel sorry for those poor Yankees?” A better person and lesser sports fan may have had such feelings, but not I. As the Yankees season died, I was dancing on their grave.
So if you want to be a better person, live the golden rule and love everyone. But if you want to be a better sports fan, learn how great it is to hate.
Clark Jessop is a
sophomore majoring
in broadcast journalism.
He can be reached at
clarkjessop@cc.usu.edu