Super Fans That Are Way More Committed to Their Team Than You Are
The average sports fan dedicates more time, money and energy supporting their favorite team than they’re comfortable admitting. If you’re like me, just the act of quantifying how much of these finite resources are spent on being a sports fan invokes a sense of unease.
It’s because deep down we know that spending a couple of hundred dollars on a hockey jersey and then burning it a few years later—when that player signed with the team you hate more than any other—is irrational. You love the team, but how often does it love you back? This brings up a larger point: to be a real sports fan, a person has to accept some measure of blind faith—a kind of threshold that serves as a demarcation line.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Almost any fan is capable of decisions and behavior that call into question their judgment, if not their sanity, because we are all a little unstable (at least on game day.) But, there are also outliers—sports fans who make us all go “WTH!”
These are people who, absent of the sports connection, would possibly find themselves the subject of an intervention by their family—fans that don’t just burn the jersey of the player that betrayed them, but coordinate a campaign to collect everyone else’s and then burn the pile.
Ohio State
In 2014 an unexpected loss to Virginia Tech almost cost Ohio State, which went on to win the national championship, a spot in the playoffs. One year later and there was at least one member of the Buckeyes faithful that came to Blacksburg with a score to settle off the field.
"An Ohio State flag was planted on Friday atop Mt. Hokie, a fan-made shrine in rural Virginia: http://t.co/y1ebhI8IR9 pic.twitter.com/m6m09DKYJ6
— Andrew Lind (@AndrewMLind) September 6, 2015"
Days prior to their Labor Day rematch, an Ohio State flag appeared over the Virginia Tech logo that’s painted on a dirt mound known as Mount Hokie. [h/t CollegeSpun] Sure it was a bit unnecessary, but college football fandom exists mostly in that space.
New England Patriots
Bad idea tattoos are one of the best ways for out of control crazy fans to distinguish themselves from run of the mill superfans. Countless lists have already been dedicated to awful fan tattoos because there is always someone else willing to permanently deface their body with something they will almost certainly later regret and then brag about it on social media.
"“@JeremiahLucas: @Patriots @LindaH_Official fresh ink. Let's go Pats!! #Patriots #inbillwetrust pic.twitter.com/0BAHWK8xPv”WoW! #LoyalFan 👍
— Linda Holliday (@LindaH_Official) January 16, 2015"
Tattoos on the face or skull tend to get the most attention, but there’s just something indescribably next level about this Patriots fan’s “Belichick yourself before you wreck yourself” that elevates the whole thing. [h/t CBS Sports] It’s even crazier than crazy Patriots skull tattoo guy because of course that dude has a bunch of skull tattoos.
"THAT MUG SHOT! @Patriots super fan with Tom Brady skull tattoo is wanted by Florida police. http://t.co/kW1G8awqPF pic.twitter.com/TknPoqeMgT
— Frank Posillico (@FrankPosillico) January 25, 2015"
The guy with the Belichick tattoo could be someone you work with, which makes it even more disturbing.
University of Alabama
In December 2012, a Birmingham lawyer named Marcus Jones III asked a judge to delay a civil trial for less than traditional reasons. The trial was set to begin on Jan. 7, which happened to be the day of the BCS National Championship game in Miami. Unmoved by Jones’ reasoning, a judge denied his first request early in the month.
With tickets in hand, Jones remained persistent and the judge came around, eventually rescheduling the trial’s start date and allowing the lifelong Alabama super fan to attend the game.
Green Bay Packers
The notoriously frigid winter conditions in Green Bay might be enough to keep a lesser fanbase at home come game day, but it takes a lot more than ice cold temperatures and mountains of snow to deter Packers fans. And they’ll do a lot more than just show up—several times in recent years Packers fans have converged on Lambeau Field to help shovel out the stadium after a massive snowfall.
"Green Bay @packers fans showed up droves to help shovel snow from the stadium. True fans. http://t.co/ptQAwRDW pic.twitter.com/BZsZd1b3
— M.L. Huisman (@ML_Huisman) January 3, 2013"
The team offers up a modest $8 an hour for the back-breaking work, but you get the sense that most of them would show up regardless of pay. Only 450 shovelers are required to get the job done, but a record 1,200 people showed up ahead of the NFC Championship game in January 2012—750 of them were turned away.
Ohio State
Recently an Ohio State fan proved nothing is more important than maintaining the clear boundaries established in the school’s forever blood feud with Michigan. [h/t Fansided] Or, as Derrick Martin knows it, “that state up north.”
"Had a job recruiter wanting me to apply and interview at a job in the state up north. This was my reply. #GoBucks pic.twitter.com/nzCf0W7Bjr
— Derrick Martin (@DboMart) September 24, 2015"
If an email he posted to Twitter is to be believed, Martin turned down a job opportunity because it would’ve required relocating to the land of Wolverines. What he lacks in professional ambition, he makes up for in loyalty to the Buckeyes. Which, unfortunately, is not an equal trade off.
Pittsburgh Steelers
With the Steelers set to take on the Seahawks in Super Bowl XL, their first time back in the championship game since losing to the Cowboys a decade earlier, fans in Pittsburgh were understandably excited to see their team back in the big show. Although, none perhaps more than Carrie Welling, who was in the neighborhood (or at least rapidly approaching the neighborhood) of nine months pregnant at the time.
With her due date perilously close to Super Bowl Sunday, Welling took the extraordinary step of asking her doctor to induce labor a week early so the birth wouldn’t jeopardize her chance to see the game. Alexandria Joella Welling was delivered the preceding Wednesday. “Her middle name is a mixture of three Steelers names: ‘Joe’ for Joey Porter, ‘El’ for Antwaan Randle El and ‘A’ for Alan Faneca,” that craziness per the Orlando Sentinel.
University of Alabama
Alabama football fans are known to be a lot of things, passionate among them. So passionate that every few years a couple of expected parents-to-be make the unpopular decision of naming their baby/babies something ridiculous that expresses their fandom to the world.
March 2007: Tim and Hannah Witt welcome newborn baby boy Saban, younger brother to their first son, Tyde. Keep in mind that Nick Saban had yet to coach a single game in Tuscaloosa.
March 2010: Shane Broadhurst and Emily McCard welcome baby boy Crimson Tide, who is joined by sister Alleigh Bama two years later.
December 2013: Steven and Summer Steele welcome their third child, a baby boy they decided to name Krimson Tyde, who will probably forever envy the relatively normal names of his older brothers, Trenton and Dawson.
Cleveland Cavaliers, Pittsburgh Pirates
Though we’ve already covered tattoos to some extent, fans who go out on a limb and permanently ink their lofty championship expectations on their bodies deserve a separate shout out. The level of loyalty clouded by delusion it takes to commit to something like this is almost admirable. Almost.
"@espn @BBTN @SportsCenter pic.twitter.com/OWBllGyHUo
— Andrew Broadwater (@ajbroadh2o_24) August 12, 2015"
"I'm #Allin @cavs pic.twitter.com/yYRO0V4YYK
— Lil Geeky (@Lonniedoe) May 30, 2015"
And for some reason it always seems to be fans of teams that really should know better that do this. Sure the Pirates and Cavaliers are both good right now, but their very recent histories are proof of just how tenuous success can be.
Baltimore Orioles
Tearing a page straight out of the Krimson Tyde book, Orioles super fans Collen and Tony Serra have also decided to use their two children as living billboards to promote their own sports allegiances—not just to the team, but apparently the stadium in which they play as well.
"Orioles fans with son Camden name newborn daughter Yardley #BALOrioles #Os http://t.co/EkpnK7vcDY pic.twitter.com/OawKmTLWm9
— Orioles Report (@orioles_fanly) July 21, 2015"
The couple’s first born is a five-year-old boy named Camden Yards. Yeah, that happened. In June they welcomed a baby girl named Yardley, apparently quite dedicated to the ballpark theme they established in 2010.
Also more dedicated than you are the Red Sox fans who named their kid Fenway Parks and the Cubs fans who named their kid Wrigley Fields. Seriously though, this needs to stop.
Dallas Cowboys
There are few things worse than a seemingly botched call that may or may not have cost your team the game—especially in the playoffs. Go ask a Cowboys fan what they think of Dez Bryant’s fourth-down catch that was overturned in the divisional round against the Packers in January.
Just don’t ask Terry Hendrix, an inmate at a Colorado prison and Cowboys superfan who didn’t take the whole debacle very well. In a handwritten lawsuit against the NFL filed days after the game, Hendrix asked for $88 billion in damages “for but not limited to: negligence, breacher of fiduciary duty, and also reckless disregard.”
San Diego Padres
Recently a very pregnant Padres fan proved herself to be the ultimate fan. How else can you explain a woman closing in on nine months deciding to attend a baseball game for a team that is expected to finish fourth in the NL West, no less than 10 games back (but as many as 15) from the division-winning Dodgers?
"Great crowd of 31,137 here tonight-- of course that doesn't include the baby boy that was born @PetcoPark around the third inning.
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) September 25, 2015"
"Meet the amazing nurse who just delivered the 1st baby ever inside #PetcoPark #Padres #10Newsat11 pic.twitter.com/Wge9Sktv6l
— Rielle Creighton (@10NewsCreighton) September 25, 2015"
Apparently the baby was just as eager to take in his first baseball game—mom went into labor at Petco Park and things progressed so quickly that she was unable to make it to the hospital. A nurse in attendance sprung into action and little Levi was born at the Palm Court Plaza inside Petco Park.
"We welcomed a baby boy to the world in Palm Court Plaza earlier this evening. First baby to be born at Petco Park! 👶
— Petco Park (@PetcoPark) September 25, 2015"
The first, and hopefully last, baby born there.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
