LeBron Debates Aside, Cleveland Fans Can Help Change Their Sports Culture, Too

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost, LeBron James may have played his last game for the city, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Shaquille O'Neal wants to stay, and all I hear is negativity from fans, friends, various online sources, and parts of the news media.

To start off, honestly I am not a big basketball fan due to various reasons, and I will willingly admit that I do jump on the bandwagon when the playoffs roll around.

My heart lies within football and especially the Cleveland Browns, but I am still a fan of Cleveland sports in general.

But I digress.

Whether James stays or goes, I've noticed that Cleveland sports fans in general are some of the most passionate fans, win or lose, than perhaps any other fan base in the country.

As a lifelong Clevelander, I've seen many of the heartbreaking sports moments going all the way back to when I was a young boy in the early 1980s, and through all those moments I have noticed that a dark cloud has grown over that time and now hovers over Cleveland sports.

Every time a Cleveland sports team gets to the playoffs, or gets close to having a chance to win the big one, all the past negativity understandably arises after the loss or near miss.

This dark cloud over the city's sports only gets bigger and stronger with every passing year of increased negativity and has taken on a persona of its own.

Everyone knows the cliche, "There's always next year," which is programmed into nearly every single fan of Cleveland sports and I understand the optimism behind the statement, but I also think that continuing to focus on that phrase adds to the persona that is the negativity toward the sports teams.

What needs to be done?

Look at the positives, of the past season and be optimistic of improvement.

I also understand that this is a seemingly never-ending way of looking at Cleveland sports, but the more negative talk and focus that continues, then the more pressure will be put on our players to win and succeed for all the past failures of all Cleveland sports.

Our players already have enough pressure to perform on their professional stage, but adding all the negative Cleveland talk about the heartbreak and past only adds to that pressure as well.

I am not saying all of this to tell Clevelanders how to follow or talk about their team.

But we as a community of Cleveland sports fans need to scale back all the negative talk in order to alleviate some of the pressure this dark cloud has put onto the shoulders of all our athletes.

Until the players can feel less pressure of the past failures, I truly do not think that the big one will be won.

Am I just a typical Cleveland fan with an empty spot in my soul since my city just cannot seem to win anything in the big three sports teams?

Of course, but I'm also trying to change the negative culture that is the aftermath of one of our sports teams losing into a positive because it will help our players feel less pressure.

There's always next year should be changed from a negative comment and into a positive one. This is all just one opinion of a lifelong Cleveland fan just trying to make some kind of change for the city's sports.

It's up to you to help make this change as well, by focusing on the future and the positives rather than the past and the negatives.