HTBASF, Sportz

How To Be A Sports Fan: Recruiting Is King

Yeah, so this should probably have been written sometime during the spring or summer, but it rings true always: recruiting (fondly known to sports reporters in the south as “‘crootin'”) is the single most important thing any team can be good at.

Forget winning games. Forget stats. Forget that cool new black uniform your team just revealed. Recruiting is KING. Here’s Lesson 6 on how to be a proper sports fan: Treat ‘crootin as the most important aspect of any sport.

If not for ‘crootin, who would ever give THIS guy some love?

Continue reading “How To Be A Sports Fan: Recruiting Is King”

Guest Posts, HTBASF, Sportz, Useless Observation

HTBASF: Sports Hate

This guest post is brought to you by a new Twitter friend, Ben Zajdel. Ben is a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas, works in a Christian bookstore, watches entirely too much basketball (PERFECTLY okay with me), and has written a few short books you might enjoy. You can keep up with him at his website, or on Twitter, @benzajdel.

I’ve been told my whole life not to hate people. It’s in the Bible, of course. It says there that hating someone is essentially like murdering them, or at least wanting to. My mom would scold me if I said I hated anything, including broccoli. Even my family doctor told me that hate was an ugly word when I informed him that I hated shots.

I understand their point of view. I don’t think I should dislike a person or a thing so much that it makes my chest burn, my eyes water, and my heart race. That’s obviously not healthy. I don’t advocate hating people, races, religious groups, politicians, cats, or Yankees fans, especially to the point of wishing them harm.

But there is something I call Sports Hate. It’s a little different. This type of hate doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt, or arrested, or any actual misfortune take place on a team or individual. This type of hate is much simpler, and a little less violent. When you Sports Hate a team or player, you just want them to lose. All the time. Sometimes it’s for good reason, like if they defeated your team in the playoffs the previous year. Other times it makes no sense whatsoever, and your hate simply springs from the way a guy cuts his hair. There are plenty of ways to develop Sports Hatred, and the longer you watch and play sports, you gain and lose some Sports Hate along the way.

Continue reading “HTBASF: Sports Hate”

HTBASF, Sportz

How To Be A Sports Fan: Support and Believe

This is another lesson in my HTBASF series. It is lesson 5 or 6, depending on where you list a lesson that is/will be posted on XtraBacon.com.

Always support. Always.

This entire post could probably be summed up just like that, but apparently I’m REQUIRING myself to wax philosophically for the next 1,000 words or so. I’m sorry in advance if this post isn’t quite as tongue-in-cheek as the previous HTBASF posts. I just feel like, with college football upon us now, this needs to be discussed. Here goes:

You want to be a sports fan? You want to ACTUALLY care for and support a particular team? Then be prepared to do just that.

Even if it means dealing with moments like this

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Guest Posts, HTBASF, Sportz, Useless Observation

How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson 4

Before I start this article on superstition, you need to know a little about me. I have a degree in Historical Studies, which means I learned how to fact check old documents and make sure they’re legitimate. I am also currently pursuing a degree in Environmental Science, so you can probably guess that I don’t like approximations and guesses. I’m also a Christian, so I don’t believe in magic and voodoo and curses. I openly mock those who think magnets can heal you, and I dismiss most natural remedies.

That being said, how to be superstitious is one of the most important things a sports fan can learn. Continue reading “How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson 4”

Guest Posts, HTBASF, Sportz, The GBROAT

How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson 3

Alas! I have made my return to the GBOAT. I am making my contribution to the “How To Be a Sports Fan” series based on years of experience and observation. Also, as a shameless plug, I am undertaking a once-a-week, year long blogging endeavor over at my blog, The Ramblings of a Wayward Son. – Chandler

I have been around sports for years. I’m 28 now, and I remember waaaaaaay back when as a little kid playing T-Ball. I don’t know when that was, but it was a long time ago. I was never good at sports, but I have played, and probably more importantly, watched them for years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all of these years, it’s this:

In order to be a sports fan, you must overreact to everything.

This manifests itself in many different ways. Fans do it, announcers do it, and talking heads do it. And then after you overreact to everything, you have to get mad at ESPN for creating a culture in which we overreact to everything, essentially absolving yourself of any and all blame.

Make sense? No? Good. Let’s look at it more specifically. Continue reading “How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson 3”

HTBASF, Sportz

How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson Two

Merriam-Webster defines confidence as “a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers.”

If you want to be a true sports fan, you have to understand that this is the first and only definition of the word. At no point does “confidence” apply to being certain of anything other than yourself.

In athletics, though, there is an entirely new form of confidence that somehow becomes even more self-centered than normal. It is what happens when confidence is blended with sheer arrogance. Truthfully, it’s located somewhere between confidence and arrogance, but as you’ll learn, nobody in the world really understands it at all.

I of course am talking about Swagger, and if you want to be a sports fan, you have to understand exactly what Swagger is and what Swagger isn’t. Continue reading “How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson Two”