looks over at her Buffalo Bills helmet lamp, her plaque with a Jim Kelly football card, her Bills troll, and her Beanie Baby buffalo.
glances over at her box of Flutie Flakes in the kitchen
(I’d NEVER eat those, though…they’re a collector’s item!)
looks down at the Bills sweatshirt she is currently wearing, and the Bruce Smith jersey in the closet, and the countless t-shirts folded in drawers
still cringes whenever she hears the words “wide right”
Do I need help?
Sorry, but I’m not contributing to this silliness unless I know what city I’m talking about. Any comments would be far to generalized. Different cities have different motivations. Get real girl, its not like saying what city you’re in is going to open you up for invasions from the TM. Any city with a sports team has a minimum of 500,000 people.
My guess, St. Louis, the coach who resigned must have been Tom Osbourne. All the car painting must be Cards fans.
Well—I mean, if you are really happy…(except that if you seriously are despondent when the team loses…that might be a problem!)
But, if many of the people in your city are exactly like you, I’d have to ask - is something in the water? 
Omniscient: I’m glad you know that this is silly - it sure is. (Except that I really am fed up with local news, and refuse to watch it.) St. Louis is close - same state. I’m being annoyingly coy and not saying which city exactly, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out!
The college coach that resigned was not even in the city where I live, but approx. 200 miles away. Which, in my mind, makes it even more warped. (To push the Kosovo story to the back burner for a coach that resigned in another city? Too weird.)
Well, KC isn’t the Midwest, its the Great Plains. The Midwest is generally considered the stop at the Mississippi, inclusive of the border areas.
Now the rabid fans are just football fans, KC has very weak support for a bad baseball team. No Hockey or Basketball. Can’t comment on Soccer. I imagine it seems a bit more radical when there is only one team to cheer for for a relatively short season, the fans get it all out at once. Second, unlike the vast majority of sports cities, including the Midwestern cities (Chicago, Cleveland, St Louis, Cincy, Twin Cities) the entire national identity of the city isn’t tied into sports. The cities mentioned above, especially the first three respectively, are rabid sports cities, but the culture is so diverse that it seems more tempered.
Cities where the sports fans are going to be reflected much like KC, Green Bay, and Pittsburgh are polarized. Sports are the only thing that gets these cities on the map, and therefore they are taken very seriously. This can be said of several other cities in the south and west, but the people aren’t as tied to the city as they are in the Northeast, and Midwest. To elaborate, LA, Pheonix, Miami, Jacksonville, Charlotte, and Atlanta somewhat are notoriously populated with transplants. That is to say not many families are generations deep in the cities culture. This causes a certain ambivalence to the cities institutions, sports in this case. LA is especially known for its frivalousness, and lack of cohesiveness.
In KC most people there have grown up watching the Chiefs with generations of parents and grandparents, many good memories are attached to the sports teams that can’t be attached to any other activity. In this vein, I don’t see anything wrong with the fans immersing themselves in the culture, and paraphinalia. Add to the huge amount of revenue brought into the city, and the advertisement gained everytime a game is shown nationally the support is well founded.
About the news. Your watching local news. Therein lies the answer. Local issues take top billing always, and when at any given time 10% of the city is in the stadium for the game, and 75% are likely watching it on TV. Having it as a lead in over distant world events is reasonable.
For the unbiased temperment you seem to crave, thats what CNN is for.
Hmmm…looking at your profile, it seems obvious why you feel the way you do about this issue!
As far as KC not being the Midwest, I am only repeating what the locals think - they seem to think that they are in the Midwest.
As far as the local news thing goes - I disagree completely. I guess we will always disagree on this - I just think that news, local or not, should be obligated to inform people of the most newsworthy and important thing first. I consider the Big National News story more important and newsworthy that a local sports story. Every time. Also (and this was before my time, but I heard it from a native) even some vital local stories are not as important as sports. A few years ago, some local students were being held hostage overseas. But, the local news started out with a sports story, NOT the story about the local kids being held hostage. Apparently the parents of these kids were pretty offended that their kids took second fiddle to sports.
And, yes, CNN is my option. I consider the local news screwed up completely, and I am much happier not seeing it. However, some of the local people here were quite offended when they discovered I didn’t watch local news. I don’t consider that any of their business - but, well, people see things differently here, obviously.
As for the people loving sports - fine. I’m not begrudging anyone enjoying sports. (My father enjoyed the Dodgers, and listened to every game.) But it does seem to be their main identity here. Also, they seem rather defensive about it, and take it WAY too seriously. (Do you consider death threats to a player acceptable? That’s just over the top.)
Yes, I come from a diverse area, where there are many other interests, and activities, and I don’t think I will ever adjust to this single-minded obsession. It’s just overkill. I can only take so much Team-related paraphinalia, allusions to the Team everywhere, and the single-mindedness of it all. It’s just bloody everywhere. I reached my saturation point, which is why not watching local news is such a relief. I became so much happier when I stopped watching.
There will always be two minds on this. People from sports-intensive areas will defend this as - whatever - “Community Spirit”. People from more diverse areas laugh and titter (they do, you know) at the sports towns and wonder why they get so worked up about a game. I am not saying I am laughing and tittering (well, I not admitting it here!) but I just don’t get it AT ALL.
yos.b. its sick! really, very sick.
as you said there is nothing wrong with an individual as a sports fan. but when those sport fans get into groups things get scary.
here in iceland i belive its similiar, but still different, cause we have quite a few teams here in just the city, and we have fanatics for each and every one of them. but darn it when the news peoples team is winning! i hate em, i hate em i hate hating em…
bj0rn
Not over here. In Europe and South America, those soccer fans are fucking NUTS! In America, people make a big deal out of a drunken fan jumping out of the stands on top of a player…
Now I’m not condoning this, but it’s a FAR CRY from hooligans setting fires in the stands and having dozens of people killed…
And I maintain that the looting and pilaging that goes on in lots of urban areas after a team from there wins it all (Detroit and Chicago, most notably) has less to do with sports than people using sports as an excuse to turn over a police car.
Yer pal,
Satan