Sports Allegiances

Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about sports loyalty. What makes us fans of a certain team, and under what circumstances are we allowed to change allegiances?

With pro sports, it’s perfectly acceptable to move to a new city and maintain your old allegiance. When I came to CA, I adopted the A’s and 49ers, but there was no doubt that the Indians and the Browns would stay my main teams. People who are from NY are allowed to root for the Yankees. A lot of people in the Bay Area are from SoCal and still root for the Lakers.

Perhaps after many years of living in CA, I will root for local teams over Cleveland teams, but it will take time to surpass that loyalty. Which is why I find it troubling that the same courtesy does not apply to college sports.

College is an entirely different animal. When you step foot on a campus, you ARE that team. You are immediately expected to love them unconditionally. But what if there is already a team that you are attached to, and what if that team comes in direct contact with your school’s?

I don’t have to explain why I’m writing this. The college basketball gods had a field day with me, blasting me year after year with head-to-head matchups between MSU and UNC, culminating in the national championship game senior year.

If the Indians played the A’s in the playoffs, no one would think twice about me rooting for the Indians despite living in Oakland. However, no one at UNC could believe that I would even have a slight conflict of interest for the national championship.

The thing was, it was more than a slight bias. Every single time the teams collided, I found myself rooting for MSU. It wasn’t a choice, it just happened.

I had no trouble adopting UNC football because I went to all of their games, watched them lose big more times than I can count, and felt like I’d put in the time. UNC has not played Michigan State in football, and if they did, I would probably just laugh. I also rooted for the baseball team, since I’d never followed college baseball before and had no conflict.

However, basketball felt like jumping on a bandwagon. While everyone around me immediately became a die-hard fan, I felt like the only one who had a previous allegiance to a different college team. I could not bring myself to turn away from a team that I’d loved for 10 years to jump on the bandwagon of the reigning national champion. It didn’t matter that it was my school.

What I needed was a slow transition, but the culture of college sports doesn’t allow that. I wore MSU gear on a day that UNC wasn’t even playing and got heckled on campus. This made me distance myself even more (and, in a split second, undid 3 years worth of transitioning). Rooting for MSU made me different. And I felt stronger as a result … more loyal, even.

Rooting for the clear favorite to win the championship? A team that’s expected to win year after year? With the 25,000 other people that live in my town and go to my school? That would be easy.

But rooting for the team that I’ve followed all my life? After singing the fight song at age 5, wearing green and white to school during March Madness, and hanging a poster of Morris Peterson in my bedroom after they won the national championship? Watching a great coach take scrappy, underdog teams to the final four year after year? That feels right.

I believe this is what all sports fans should address when they move to a new city. Are you doing what is easy, or what feels right? And that will answer the loyalty question.

I still think that in 20 years, I will be rooting whole-heartedly for UNC basketball, even over Michigan State. It’s my alma mater, and I have more pride for it now that I am 3000 miles away. But it will take time. Just as it will take time for me to root for the A’s over the Indians, or the 49ers over the Browns.

At some point in my life, rooting for UNC basketball will stop being the easy road and start feeling right. In the meantime, it should be acceptable for me to say, “I went to UNC but am still a Michigan State basketball fan.”