Why I Love Being a Fan of the New York Jets

There are two types of sports fans in New York.

There are the Yankees and Giants fans that have spent the last two decades basking in the glory of World Championships and Super Bowl victories.

Then there are those outcast Mets and Jets fans who have to go out to Queens and watch the Mets play while airplanes fly within inches of their head and have to go out to ‘Giants’ Stadium to watch a football team that seems more like an unwanted houseguest at The Meadowlands than one of the two teams that are meant to be sharing the place.

Most of New York roots for the Knicks, although they have not really had success since the days of Patrick Ewing, and I didn’t even know hockey was still played in New York until about a month ago when I happened to come across a Rangers game while flipping through the channels.

I am one of those outcast Mets and Jets fans.

For some unknown reason, I always seem to root for the underdog.

Whether it’s rooting for the Mets and Jets, or watching a little league baseball game and rooting for the heavyset kid to get the big hit so that for at least an afternoon he is the hero rather than the butt of those constant hurtful jokes and for just one evening, the coach’s family is spared from listening to his complaining about the league’s ‘everyone plays’ rule as if he were Joe Torrey addressing a room full of reporters rather than a volunteer coach of the Podunk Bisons.

If I walk into a dog shelter, you can be assured that I am going to head directly towards the scrawniest, ugliest dog in the place.

I don’t know if it’s some kind of sense of nobility that I unknowingly feel or if it’s just the fact that I have always been more intrigued by the challenge rather than the success.

Exciting to me is facing a seemingly insurmountable task and working hard to overcoming that challenge.

Once the impossible has been achieved, to me, it’s not fun anymore.  Sure, I will celebrate and enjoy the glory of the achievement, but then, it’s on to that next impossible challenge.

Being a Jets fan has been one of those challenges, only this challenge has lasted for many more years than any other challenge I have ever had to face.

The Jets’ last championship came in 1969.  My father was just 20 years old at the time and I was still 11 years away from screaming my head off in the crib and keeping my parents awake for months on end.

The most success I’ve seen with the Jets have lately has been the way in which they put their foot down to ensure that the new stadium being built in The Meadowlands will not once again be called ‘Giants Stadium’.

There was some excitement surrounding the acquisition of Brett Favre last year.  After all, he was the most high-profile quarterback to throw on a set of pads for the Jets since Joe Namath.

I even came within a hair of purchasing a Brett Favre jersey. 

I had it in my hand, had my debit card out and was walking towards the counter at Sports Authority before taking a lesson from history and remembering that a Jets’ quarterback hasn’t really been successful since 1969 and that this purchase might be my biggest mistake since wasting a birthday gift on a Kenny O’Brien jersey.

As we all know, times are tough economically right now, so I’m going to hold off on shelling out $90 for a Mark Sanchez jersey until he unequivocally proves that he’s not the next Kenny O’Brien.

Yes, the Yankees may have their 26 World Championships and the Giants may have their three Super Bowls and four NFL Championships, as well as their own stadium which must be pretty cool.

But, although success allows you to brag to your friends around the office or water cooler, as if it was you instead of Eli Manning throwing that touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress in the final minutes of Super Bowl XLII, it takes away one of the most exciting aspects of life—the thrill of the challenge.

If the Jets do happen to win the Super Bowl this year, Giants fans will still brag about how they have three Super Bowls compared to the Jets’ two, or how it’s taken 40 years for the Jets to finally win one and it may take another 40 years to win another.  

As most Jets fans anywhere will be largely outnumbered by Giants fans around the water cooler, there’ll be no point in even putting forward an argument.

After all, a gazelle in the fields of Africa will not tell a pack of lions surrounding him that he is the superior animal.

However, if that gazelle makes yet another great escape and lives to graze the plains another day, he can walk a little taller in knowing that he’s had to face and overcome a far larger challenge than those lions.

Jets fans will always be the outcasts in New York, and they probably will be forever; even in 2010 when they move into the new stadium where the panels along the outside of the stadium will actually turn green when the Jets are at home.

But, when the Jets do win one, all of those fans that have stood by their team in the face of the endless the jokes and criticism put forward by friends, family, co-workers and possibly even spouses, Jet fans will be able to walk with their heads just a little higher than most in knowing that they had to overcome a larger challenge than any other group of fans in New York by simply sticking with the underdog.

For me, it’s all about the challenge; and as a sports fan, it doesn’t get more challenging than being a fan of the New York Jets.