It’s very common to know people who stop following a pro team, usually due to either lots of losing or when you move to a new area. However I’ve noticed this is much rarer for fans of collegiate teams; you usually root for the college you went to for the rest of your life. Anybody out there stop rooting for their alma mater? Why? Or did you not root for them even in your college years and why?
My alma mater is a Division III school, so there’s really not much point in following them.
D1 all the way.
Been disappointed, angered, full of angst, buried the clothes in the back of the closet for a time, wondered WTF is going on with that program, suffered horrible embarrassments, but then, . . . there have been wonderful moments when they have grabbed victory from the jaws of defeat and won championships. Not only that, they’ve done it with dignity, respect and it has always been a tribute to their legacy. The athletes that have been key to the success almost always come back to pay tribute to the legacy.
It’s been a long loyalty. It hasn’t always been pleasant but when they do achieve it is particularly sweet.
Disappointed? Many times. Give up? Never.
If they leveled the stadium this afternoon and burned everything with ol’ Rooster’s cabeza de vaca on it tomorrow, I really wouldn’t shed a tear. I’ve never been to a game and the only college t-shirt I owned had the seal on it, not the athletics logo. Perhaps they could switch the new cable network over to coverage of the research programs?
Nope. Everyone’s enthusiasm wanes, but never considered abandoning them. Even with only 5 wins in 3 years.
As a Husker fan, I actively rooted against Nebraska in 2007. I wanted them to lose so they could fire Bill Callahan faster. They succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, including a 76-39 loss to Kansas.
We finished the season 1-6. I was worried that 1 win may have been enough to inspire confidence, but they fired the coach and AD pretty much the next day!
My buddies said I wasn’t a “true fan” because I cared about the long-term.
My alma mater is D1-AA in football, so nobody cares. But they’re D1 in hoops and usually decent. They’ve been a fixture lately in the postseason, be it the NCAA tournament or NIT. I would never root against them.
I always root for my undergrad alma mater, Florida. The only time I was kind of hoping they’d lose was in the 2004 football season, so as to get Ron Zook fired quicker. They obliged several times that year, including a loss at Mississippi State, one of the worst teams in the country that year. Zook was fired two days after that October game but was allowed to finish out the season.
I’ve always been apathetic to Illinois, where I went to vet school. I went to one football game and one basketball game in my time there, and I cheered for them just to be polite. Coincidentally, they hired Zook right after the Gators got rid of him.
I never give up on Ga Tech as I want them to win every time but sometimes it is more passive. But I have gone through period of ambivalence and apathy.
I went to Minnesota. They haven’t won the Big Ten since before I was born. They’ve been mostly wretched for as long as I can remember. Why should I give up on them now?
My alma mater doesn’t even exist any more. (The school closed in 1999.)
That being said, loyalty to a college team (if that is where you went to school) is different from loyalty to a pro team (especially an out-of town pro team.) No matter how hard your team sucks, it is still your school; it is part of you.
My alma mater is Kent State: they’ve been pretty darn good in basketball the last decade or so, but they’ve always just plain sucked in football. I’m loyal to them out of politeness at alumni functions but that’s about it. 
I haven’t even graduated yet and I’ve almost given up on them.
I can’t see ever giving up on my undergrad alma mater. (If my grad school even had a football team, I didn’t know about it).
I have vanity plates on my car that refernce my collegiate allegiance. I have shirts and ties picked specifically b/c they sport the team color(s).
Sure, they’ve had down years, but have 3 national championships in football and one of the best college baseball programs around. Not typically good in basketball but have had their moments. Several national championships in minor sports. From what I understand, they dominated women’s track for a while.
Even if the program goes into disarray, I’m sticking with them!
Meh to this. As a Penn State grad, I grew to hate the idiocy of what a football or other big sports weekend did to the town/campus so much that you could set fire to the stadium and I’d probably cheer that.
In the main, all PSU did for me was give me a mediocre degree (that I paid for) and some highly suspect math education from grad students who couldn’t communicate in English in the process thereof. Now all it does for me is ensure my town is completely gridlocked and overcrowded every home football weekend. Fuck 'em with a spork.
I’m not a football fan, and only went to one game in my entire college career. I couldn’t even have told you how they were doing while I was in college. But there was one guy who worked in my office who followed college football, and knew where I went to school (he didn’t go to the same school). He was always coming up to me and making comments about “my team’s” games and players, or how they did last night. I just kind of gave him a blank stare, or said, “I don’t really follow football.” He never seemed to get the hint. I guess he thought that college football loyalty had to last forever.