Chapter 7. There's No Need to Fear, Underdog is Here

by Bob Andelman

"The team I'm rooting for becomes an extension of me. It is me. When there's an undeserved penalty, it's almost as if it's against me. It makes me mad, like almost missing a red light when you're in a hurry."

Jim Melvin
Newspaper editor
St. Petersburg, Florida

Meet Jim Melvin. He's a health and fitness writer and copy editor for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. Jim's got a good job, two daughters he loves and a standard poodle named Bogie. Guys like to hang out with Jim because he's bright, witty and interested in manly things like sports and checking out beautiful women.

Maybe you know somebody like him.

When it comes to football, though, few men are as emotionally attached to their team as Jim is to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs don't know him from any other fan, but to him, they're family. If the team lost all its fans, coach Sam Wyche could still count on Jim to buy him a beer.

"I've always had this theory that you become more attached to a losing team than a winning team," Jim says. "I get much angrier when the Bucs lose than I get happy when they win. If the Bucs were to go 12-4 and win the Super Bowl, I'd go through the roof. Would a 49ers fan feel the same way? They're P.O.'d if the 49ers don't make the playoffs. Me, I'd be happy with 8-8.

"At the height of my attraction to the Bucs, when I sit down at 1 for a game to start, I'm an emotional wreck. My heart races, my hands sweat. I can't eat. I try to eat a brunch before the game. Because there is no way, at 1 p.m., I can sit down and eat. I'm way too happy, excited, positive.

"Then," he says, "you know what happens.

"Typically, 10 minutes into a Bucs game, more bad things have happened to us than in one entire game for any other team. I've been anticipating three hours of pure pleasure and now, after 10 minutes, I'm angry. Ten minutes into the game, anyone around me would no longer want to be around me. I develop a different personality. You wouldn't want to ask me a favor, you wouldn't want to discuss a pleasant thing. And if you don't like profanity, you wouldn't want to be around me."

Jim's first exposure to football came during the NFL's 1966 championship game. It was fourth and 1, frozen conditions. Bart Starr scored on a quarterback sneak.

"I was so excited, jumping around. That's when I got the bug." The Green Bay Packers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 34-21.

Before he became enamored with the Bucs -- and before Tampa Bay ever bowed its head and admitted possession of the Bucs -- Jim was a fan of the Atlanta Braves. Hank Aaron was the toast of the team in those days, not that he had much competition for attention. "He was great; they were terrible," Jim recalls. "That's when I first felt angry, that I was being personally wronged by a team." 

He also recalls crying at a high school basketball game when his team won on a last-second shot.

Geography rules Jim's allegiances. The closer the team is, the more he like them. Jim's choices tend to reflect the sports landscape of the Southeastern United States in the '60s, when he was a teenager: the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks and Florida State University. The Bucs came along in 1976.

Sure, he loves football. He's fascinated by the offensive and defensive strategies, the power and speed of the players. But it goes beyond that, into an emotional realm, see-sawing between heated anger and brief moments of pleasure.

"I don't like to lose," he says. "Any time that my team loses, I feel there was something more than the team's play. Officials, bad luck or the weather turned against them. But you have to look at this in the context of the team I root for. Probably the worst team in professional football, an unbelievable string of losing seasons. Every Sunday, I'm let down. But I feel like I've invested so much energy in them, it's too late to back down now.

"I think of it in terms of waiting in a real long line. You've waited in it two hours, maybe you're going to wait another hour, but by God you're not going to get out of it now. And you have a short memory. You remember the three or four good plays and forget the bad ones. By the following Sunday, you're ready to go again. And occasionally," he says, "there's a win in there."

Very occasionally.

When the Bucs are reduced to losers by halftime, Jim turns the television off and tries to find something else to occupy his mind. But he'll turn it on again later for a few seconds to make sure there wasn't a miraculous rally. When you consider that the Bucs are one of the losingest teams in NFL history, those early blow-outs actually save Jim hours of heartache.

Of course, the more typical game puts his beloved franchise ahead or within two or three points going into the last seconds of the fourth quarter. Then, having suckered Jim into believing this time it's really going to happen, they lose. Miserably. Painfully. Like being used for tackling practice by the Monsters of the Midway.

Image via Wikipedia

"If it goes down to the wire and they lose, I'll be depressed about it until mid-Tuesday," Jim says. Lots of opposing players have vanquished Bucs hopes over the years, but Jim recalls one especially painful Sunday when Detroit Lions quarterback Rodney Peete stepped up as designated spoiler.

"I dangled my feet in the shallow end of the pool, facing the deep end. I didn't move for half an hour."

That's Jim's post-game show. During the Buc games -- which he watches alone because no friends or family members can endure his misery and tantrums -- Jim transforms.

He's never physically attacked anyone. But objects have potential. The Soloflex is supposed to be indestructible. Jim says it's not. He got so angry during one game because of a Bucs touchdown being called back by a holding penalty that he broke the exercise unit's bench by pounding on it with his fists. Another time he wrecked a coffee table. He hit it so hard that the metal frame bent. "I get so angry that I almost take on super-human strength," he says.

"When things go well, I run around the house, dancing, jumping. Once I somersaulted into the pool, only to be cursing 10 minutes later because the other team ran a kickoff in for a touchdown.

"My (ex-wife) did not like it. She thought it was stupid, silly. It scared the kids, the animals. And she was right. I would waste three hours on a Sunday afternoon for something that would make me mad. But your love of a sports team goes beyond your ability to control that. It's very intense. She'd leave the house. She'd go by herself and I'd have the kids. I would get real angry and when I'd come out of my rage, they would be in a corner standing behind a chair. They weren't scared of me, they thought it was funny. And if something good happened, they'd scream and leap around with me. Beth Ann even made up a board game: 'Act like a dog . . . Act like a cat . . . Act like dad when he gets mad at football games.' "

* * *

Dr. William J. Beausay, a Columbus, Ohio, psychologist and founder of the Academy of Sport Psychology International, understands the Jim Melvins of the world.

"I'm a clinical psychologist," Beausay says, "and I have often said that people, rather than going to a psychologist and paying $90 to $100 an hour, would find it so much cheaper to buy a football ticket for $10 to $15, get fabulous psychotherapy in two and a half hours and solve all their problems if their team wins. It's better than going to see a psychologist."

On the other hand, if their team loses and they really strongly identify with it -- and fanatics do project themselves onto their teams -- then they get double trouble. But they only have to wait three or four days until the prospect of recovering or righting a wrong begins to present itself. "It's worth all the time that you have to wait and the money you have to spend," Beausay says.

Guys like Jim Melvin lack other sources of positive reinforcement in their lives, according to the experts. Football provides a temporary reinforcement -- a sense of security and a sense of meaningfulness.

Men, because they are competitive, have to test themselves to see if we are, "acceptable," "very good" or "Number One." That's what matters to men; that's the nature of men. Women don't have to do this. "If you put a bunch of little girls together in a sandbox," Beausay says, "they'll start to work and function together. You put little boys together and soon they are throwing sand at each other. It starts very early on."

Men have to test themselves to find out if they are good enough or just adequate. Psychologists call that the male ego. They are just testing their own identity. "Am I lovable?" "Am I acceptable?"

We project ourselves into their football team and that test is then performed by proxy. If a man's team wins that means he is No. 1. For one small moment he is a Master of the Universe and it was worth that $25 admission price or three hours invested in front of a television. He has met the need to test himself through his team. If his team wins, the guy will mouth off all week long about how tough "we" were, how great "we" were. "Did you see that play?" A man needs to be heard and known. He is going to let everybody know the Seahawks are his team.

"The general spectator is a middle class to lower middle class individual," says Dr. John M. Silva, a professor of sport psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Given the socialization of that class of individuals, where they feel that they often have to succeed against difficult odds, it is a pretty natural social phenomenon that they are going to identify with an underdog team and hope that underdog team can succeed in spite of the odds. The other team is stacked and they have all the ability. They have the high-paid players; their management bought the best team possible. I think it is a very natural thing to make analogies between the fan's everyday life and the situations and obstacles that they have to overcome being in the particular social strata that they are in and what is being symbolized on the TV screen for them."

You don't have to root for a loser to feel lost and adrift, though.

The Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills enjoy winning records year in and year out. They regularly appear in post-season play, carrying ecstatic fans all the way to the Super Bowl three times apiece by 1993 -- for a combined record of six losses, no wins. The Bills pulled that stunt three years in a row.

Despite going to many NFL championships, many fans of both teams feel like losers.

"There was a big debate," Broncos fan Jeff Spear says. "Do you want them to go to the Super Bowl again, knowing that they are going to lose? Do you want to see this again? You know what is going to happen. You know the pain associated with getting so close and just getting killed. It's traumatic because you go from such a high to such a low. There is no middle ground.

"Before the Broncos played the 49ers (Super Bowl XXIV, 1990) I knew they were going to get crushed, but I was still excited that they were there. You can always think something great is going to happen and wow, maybe this time it's going to be different, but the odds are against you. It's part of the struggle that attracts you to that team and the game. Just maybe, one time, a miracle will happen and they'll do it. But there is a voice in the back of your head saying, 'Look out.' "

Spear, a comedy writer for Tonight Show with Jay Leno, lived in the Denver area for a dozen years until leaving in 1989. He is still a Broncos fan, although he thinks of himself as rooting for the underdog.

"There is a huge stigma attached to the team," Spear says. "I see myself following the Broncos as much as I can for as long as I can. I have always felt that when and if they ever do win the Super Bowl I might go on to something else. It's something that they obviously need to accomplish. It's the only thing left. Maybe I'll give them one more shot. Lose it once more. I'll stick with them until they win it all."

* * *

It's one thing to be so involved in sports but quite another to be so attached to a loser. Is there something seriously lacking in the lives of such men?

"It gets harder to explain how you would get attached to a loser," says Dr. Edward R. Hirt, an Indiana University social psychologist.

A lot of people in Hirt's part of the country bring up Cubs fans as a counter-example. The Cubs break hearts every year. It seems like they will win. In August, they may be in first place, but they will inevitably choke. Talk about summer traditions! Yet their fans are incredibly loyal and stick with them through all that. In some ways, they pride themselves as being real fans because they stick by the team. They are true fans.

Thick-and-thin fans develop a charming elitism by sticking to teams like bubblegum on the bottom of $100 running shoes. They scoff at the people who come out of the woodwork only when the team wins. Career fans waggle a cynical finger and snub their noses at late arrivals who rejoice in the team's Cinderella comebacks. Where were you when . . . ? The diehards feel that only they have the right to enjoy the long-awaited successes, whereas these other people just jumped on the bandwagon.

"It would be real interesting for me to understand how these people cope," Hirt says. "I can't imagine that they sit there and just let themselves be miserable. I'm sure they have to funnel their energies toward more constructive things. Maybe people do that by playing the armchair coach and quarterback, talking about what their team needs to do. They call the sports talk shows or talk to their buddies and friends about what the team needs to do and how to turn it around."

Naturally, there are men who just happen to gravitate to underdogs. Nobody questions their psychological underpinnings or wonders if their elevator goes all the way to the top. They pick long shots because it's more rewarding if they pull out a miracle and win it all. What a thrill to be one of the few people who saw it coming.

They set themselves up as being unique. We all like the underdog to come through. Think of the NCAA. People just love the Cinderella teams coming out of nowhere and knocking off one of the big guys in the Final Four. There is something indescribably delicious about seeing the underdog come through.

* * *

Back to Jim Melvin. He and John Cimasko could be brothers. As obsessed as Melvin is with the Bucs, Cimasko is only a notch away in his total devotion to the Indianapolis Colts.

"I get pretty wound up," Cimasko says. "I don't watch the away games with anybody. My wife doesn't let anybody come over. If the Colts are having a real bad day, my wife will tell the kids (Jack and Jill -- really) to go downstairs. I don't sit. My legs are flying, my arms are flying. Or, if it's third and inches, I'm on my knees in front of the TV. I don't throw anything at the TV that might break it. My wife laughs. It'll be the first few minutes, the other team's first possession, and I'll say, 'It's the most important play of the game!'"

Cimasko's father-in-law is a quiet and reserved man, so Cimasko usually tones down around him. Ten minutes into a game, he once said to John, "You live and die on every play, don't you?" Later in the same game, the Colts scored a touchdown and Cimasko leaped out of his chair and nearly hit his head on the ceiling. His father-in-law's eyes popped out.

"My feeling is, anybody can root for a good team," Cimasko says. "Back in '86 and '90, New York Giants fans came out of the woodwork. I think it's more impressive if you root for a team that stinks. When the Colts were 0 and 13 people used to call me up and say, 'Are you going to hang yourself?' If you're loyal, it has to be whether they're good or bad. When they win, maybe I had something to do with it when I stirred the crowd up on third down. Who knows? My loyalty is unconditional. I'll tell you what, one win makes up for 20 losses. As long as they try 100 percent, I'm behind them 100 percent."

He makes a point of seeing the Colts off at the airport when they leave for away games and welcomes them back on their return. "There have been times when they come home from a loss and I'll be the only one there. It'll be a Sunday night in December, snowing, I'm on the way to the airport and I feel like the last, lonely Colts fan."

Cimasko was 10 years old in 1965 when the bug bit him. That was the year the Colts lost a playoff game 13-10 in overtime. He wrote Johnny Unitas a letter wishing him luck. It was the first time he uttered those infamous words: "Wait till next year!"

"To me, football is more than a game and the Colts are more than a football team," Cimasko says. "I've lost interest in so many things growing up and changed my opinions on so many things. But down at the Hoosierdome, I'm 10 years old. There's nothing like seeing a horseshoe on the side of a helmet. I get so excited."

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Chapter 17. Two Tickets to Paradise

by Bob Andelman

"I don't go to sporting events unless I get good seats. It's a waste of money if you don't. If you're an avid fan, it's worth the money."

Larry Selvin
Financial accountant
West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Jerry DeForest Jr. is a superfan.

The 1992-93 season marked his fourth consecutive year of traveling from city to city with his cherished New York Giants. Wherever they go, he goes.

"It's my hobby," he says. "I love seeing other cities."

Understand that DeForest, who played football at New York's Niagara University, also journeys to the Kentucky Derby, NCAA Final Four and World Series. (He doesn't miss Niagara games, home or away, either.)

His mega-devotion began innocently in 1981 when a Giants-Jets clash wasn't broadcast in Buffalo so DeForest and a college classmate hitchhiked to Schenectady. One year he road-tripped to Dallas and his picture appeared in the Dallas Morning News. Seems he painted his head to resemble a Giants helmet. In 1986, he and a pal flew to Pasadena and dropped $325 apiece on game day for Super Bowl tickets.

His special football fixation centers on the pre-game festivities. "I love to tailgate," DeForest says. For a 1 p.m. game, he'll be in the stadium parking lot at 8:30 a.m. He can always be counted on to organize and cater the tailgate parties, endearing him to 80 friends and family members each week. His legendary tailgate parties attract the families of Giants players as well as the beat reporters who cover the Giants for New York metro area newspapers.

DeForest loves to tailgate so much, he name his Staten Island bar "The Tailgate." The bar's red, white and blue decor doubles as a shrine to the Giants.

And he doesn't just tailgate the easy way, during Giants home games at the New Jersey Meadowlands. Noooooo. DeForest organizes moveable feasts. On Saturday nights before away games, he organizes out-of-town cocktail parties which always draw a handful of Giants players.

"I just love football. Everything about football," he says. "Even when the Giants were conservative, that didn't bother me. Running is the same as throwing to me. I'm more of a Giants fan than a football fan. When I'm at a Giants game, I don't care that I'm missing nine hours of football on TV. All I care about is the Giants. The rest of the NFL -- I could care less."

Don't get the idea that Jerry DeForest Jr.'s devotion to the Giants comes at the expense of other things in his life that might fall on the same Sunday the Giants are playing.

Why, one Thanksgiving, when the Giants were scheduled to play the Cowboys in Dallas, DeForest stayed home in Staten Island, closed The Tailgate to the public and feted his family to a holiday dinner -- while watching the game on a 60-inch TV.

And he actually missed one away game in recent years because it conflicted with his cousin's wedding.

Well, to be honest, he didn't really miss that game.

The wedding ceremony was scheduled for 3:30 p.m.; the game started at 4. Obviously, DeForest couldn't be in Los Angeles for the kickoff, but he couldn't face missing the game, either. He compromised by skipping the ceremony and catching up with the bride and groom at their reception -- just after 7 p.m.

"Unless I'm in the wedding party, I'm not missing the game," he says. "My family knows how I am. By not going to L.A., they took it as a sacrifice."

* * *
It costs a lot of money to see a pro football game in person. Tickets start at $25 in most cities. If you're a really big fan, it's not worth buying single game tickets because the best seats go to season ticketholders. Now the cost is up to a couple hundred bucks to reserve a seat for all eight home games.

But you don't go alone, do you?

Taking a son, a wife, a daughter or a buddy doubles the admission cost. Maybe the company will pay for the seats, though, and occasionally you'll take a client to legitimize it as a business expense.

Parking costs $5 to $10 per game. And food. Gotta eat. Consume mass quantities. Can't bring your own. League rules. Once inside, it wouldn't be football without beer, chili dogs and nachos, would it?

If you've gone this far, might as well go the rest of the way: team sweatshirts and hats for chilly days, neon ponchos for rainy days, and a team license plate or plate holder for the car so everyone knows your team.


 

Then there's the time factor. You could stay home, watch the game on TV and keep your commitment to a mere three hours. But as Atlanta Falcons fan Mark von Dwingelo says, "It's a pain in the neck to watch TV because there's so many commercials."

von Dwingelo obviously never invested the time, money and self-esteem to see the Tampa Bay Bucs play a 1 p.m. game at sweltering Tampa Stadium. Only a real (desperate) man can bear that.

Allowing 45 minutes to traverse either crosstown or bridge traffic, plus stadium gridlock, won't you need at least 90 minutes to two hours before kickoff to properly tailgate? And because beer is only borrowed and there are no trees to duck behind for relief in the parking lot, you'll have to be in the stadium to queue up at the rest rooms at least 20 minutes before 1 p.m.

What about the weather? By November, it sucks in most every NFL city save those in Florida and Southern California.

The game itself will be over by 4 p.m. If you've invested this much time and money already, you must also expect your team could win, something that keeps you in your seat until the last tick of the game clock. If they win, everybody else will stick around, so it'll be impossible to leave the parking lot in a hurry and who would want to? There's a few light beers and a stale bag of open chips in the car, let's celebrate victory for a few hours alongside a couple thousand of our closest pals!




Some people would find all this enough reason to stay home and watch football in front of a TV, just a few paces off the kitchen and toilet. But to many men being there is everything.

"Here in the San Francisco Bay area, with the 49ers," William J. Winslow says, "anybody who goes to the game, everybody else is going to know about it the next day. Tickets are hard to get. It's not so much who they're going to rub elbows with but that they were there. Where the action is. That elevates them."

In cities like San Francisco and Denver or New Jersey's Meadowlands the situation is static. Season ticketholders rule the stadiums, making a fan's presence an issue of status, not cross-strata camaraderie.

"It is a status symbol," Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum says. "Any time there is a waiting list to get tickets for anything, once you get to be on the top of that list, you are getting something that a lot of people are not getting. The status is not often spelled out but there is that feeling of, 'Hey, I went to the game!' and that may count for something in office conversation.

"I have season tickets to both the Giants and the Jets games," he says. "They are sold out so a lot of people watch the games on TV by default. They would love to go to the stadium but they don't have tickets and they can't get them. There is a long waiting list. I don't know what it is like in other cities where there may not be sell-outs. Here, people generally love to go the games. I think for most guys it is more exhilarating to be out there and feel closer to the field and closer to the action and you tend to get into it more."

• "We tailgate with a group of 17 people, or we go out to breakfast before the game and back to someone's house afterward," Dave Schwarzmueller says. "But their season tickets are all under my name. They say, 'Don't die, Dave!' but I took care of that. I gave my older daughter the names of the people who have the right to a ticket. She's the executor of my estate. She and my lawyer will make sure everybody continues to get their tickets. The teams are really strict about these things. The tickets will still come to me, in my name. All we have to do is a change of address."

• "I don't care where I sit; I sit in the end zone," Bill Price says. "I like to get there at least 90 minutes ahead of the game, watch them practice, soak up the whole thing. It's electric. There's nothing like being there. You can't get that on television."

* * *
New York Giants fan Jim Luttrell journeyed to Pasadena in 1987 for Super Bowl XXI. It was a quick trip; he flew out Saturday morning, watched his Giants stomp the Denver Broncos 39-20 and left on Monday morning.

Image via Wikipedia

"That was a big moment," Luttrell recalls. "And having them win made it more special. But just being there was one of my biggest highlights as a sports fan. We had champagne in the parking lot afterward. That was when we found out that the trunk of a Cutlass Cierra holds water. We didn't have a cooler; Some store owner gave us a cardboard box of ice."

Here's another almost priceless Super Bowl story:

Christmas, 1992. Bill Price visits his daughter in the West Indies, where she's a Peace Corps volunteer. Wading into the ocean, a wave abruptly flips Price over and lands him on his head, breaking several vertebrae. The accident puts him in an upper-body cast for months.

As fate would have it, Price's beloved Buffalo Bills earn an invitation to Super Bowl XXVII a month after his accident and Price acquires two tickets. He tells his doctor that he has to take a plane trip and needs some extra medication; he just doesn't tell him where. Despite the body cast, he and his son go to Pasadena and sit in the Rose Bowl.

"I said to my son, 'Even though we lost, I'm glad to be here,' " Price recalls. "I think this tells you I am a loyal Bills fan: I would do it again."

Buying a $30 football game ticket apparently gives some of us license to have out-of-body experiences.

All week long, men are expected to report to work, be on time, keep our mouths shut and produce, produce, produce. At the stadium, we get to turn that around. Buy a ticket and rearrange the order of the universe. Now the workers bark the demands. And sometimes we can be pretty demanding. Especially standing elbow-to-elbow, brews flowing, hands cupped to mouths and screaming together for what we want: blood.




"It's an ego need," Dr. William J. Beausay says. "The need to be powerful, to be successful, to achieve, to be the king, even if for one week or one day or one hour. These people work every day. They have to answer to a boss. They have to answer to a wife. They have to get the job done. They have bills to pay and everybody is on their ass, so to speak, so for one moment for one day they can buy a ticket and suddenly, they are in charge. They are the coach, the owner and that's why you have the right to get mad and swear and threaten and get mad at the referees too. When you buy that ticket you buy the right to be angry at your team and demand changes and this and that."

It goes back to group crowd psychology. Our ego becomes submerged into the group ego and it's a different set of rules that we go by. Much more aggressiveness is tolerated than would be individually. Many more demands. "I want what I want and if I don't get it, by God, I'm going to let you know!"

There are few restraints upon crowds. With less restraint, fans can do more damage. They can tear down goalposts, throw bottles, get into fights. In crowds, more interpersonal stimulation develops. When people go to a football game they almost have to talk to the person next to them. They rally and encourage each other and the people all around them, railing against a common foe.

"What will happen," Beausay says, "is if the direction of the emotional tone is positive, the fans go sky high. But if the direction of the emotional tone is negative, it can get ugly and very destructive in very short order. Crowd psychology is a peculiar, interesting phenomenon."

Alone, in the stands, most men would be quiet and restrained. But in the company of our friends and family, we become much more vocal.

It's a social experience where we pick up cues from the people we're with. Human beings in a crowd pick up cues as to what is appropriate. To stand up and cheer -- you wouldn't do that at a church service or a poetry reading but at a football game, the norms say it is okay to do certain things, to scream and swear or whatever you wouldn't ordinarily do. When we're alone we wouldn't get up and swear but if we're with somebody we might because it's expected. The other person does it and it seems normal.

The people who go to the games might even be a little bit different than the people who are at home. They have taken the extra effort to go. They dress in special ways that identify them with their team colors. A "psyching" action takes place. They may have been drinking for a while, which also changes the scope of things.

"A friend of mine from Chicago said it is really an experience to go to a hockey game there," Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen says. "For one thing, the social class is different. These tend to be more working class people than what you would find at a Chicago Bears football game. The women that go to the Blackhawks games are differently dressed. In fact, many of them are called 'hockey whores.' They are not whores but they dress in cheap, garish ways. It is part of the culture that has arisen out of hockey. If people go to the game expecting that people are going to be this way, expecting people to behave in these ways, expecting violent things to occur on the field, they are ready at a psychological level that they wouldn't be at home. At home they turn the clicker on and they haven't gone through all of the kind of levels of preparedness that you would going to a game."

What the fan sees before him on the field or around him in the stands -- fights, verbal aggression, spilled beer and thrown food -- make him tense, angry, ready. That doesn't happen in his living room.

Some people would argue that it's a release of pent-up emotions. But Eitzen refutes that.

"The research actually shows that when you leave these games, no matter whether your team won or lost, your level of aggression is higher than when you entered the stadium," the sociologist says. "It is not like you were released of these pent-up emotions. It actually builds these emotions. I think what is happening, and one of the attractions, is we live, for the most part, in kind of a boring world, routine, hum-drum, day-to-day, and we look forward to these things because they bring excitement to an otherwise unexciting life."

* * *
Football games promote social interaction. NFL Sundays mean celebration, food and good times.

The atmosphere and the energy generated in the middle of a stadium, bar or living room crowded with fans is stimulating. It spills over. There is hardly any way men can sit still or be impartial, whether our team is winning or losing, because of the incessant overload and overcharge of energy that is coming from around us. It's almost physical. We can feel it. If you put electrodes on the entire audience the feedback it would be incredible. They're the ones winning and losing, experiencing the thrill.

Dr. William J. Beausay, in his sport psychology research, found that for adults, the amount of stimulation and projection onto football teams is greater in an enclosed arena than in an open stadium. Fewer brawls break out in an open arena. That suggests one reason hockey fans are notorious: They scrunch together in small arenas, literally on top of each other and the players. Their interaction skyrockets, especially in games where there is a lot of personal body contact.

"There is a factor in hockey called 'continuous process,' " Beausay says. "Football is a 'fragmented process' because you run a play and everybody quits and rests and relaxes, then you run another play. Of course there will be brawls and breakouts between plays, but they are the exception to the rule. However, in games like hockey or auto racing the action is continuous. In soccer it keeps going and the soccer fans are known for their violence. When you go and sit for an hour, enduring the constant pressure of the ball going back and forth without a rest, it builds up a tremendous amount of energy. In the end, if their team loses, the fans destroy the stadium or kill people on the other side. That happens all the time."

Former Chicago Bears offensive tackle Dan Jiggetts recalls leaving Soldier Field after games and seeing fans more frenzied than his teammates. "Some people, that's their outlet for the week. They're satisfied. Other people are jacked up, looking for trouble. But the guys leaving the locker rooms are worn out," he says.




Knowing this, more restrained fans may wonder why stadiums don't increase security to reign in the rowdies.

"There has been the question of what happens when there is obviously the presence of a show of force," Beausay says. "For example, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, they actually brought horsemen in from the Philadelphia Police Department. The question is, does that antagonize or arouse? We did some research on that and found that the presence of force makes people feel a little more secure but if the officers have helmets on or have horses or officers stand around with a police dog, it will actually antagonize fans."

Somehow the presence of peace officers ties in to the natural anger and hostility we have for our opponent. We see security as part of the opponent and it creates trouble. Security tries to blend in as best a person with a gun can, not wanting to trigger or incite the mindset that has been created all week long in rabid fans who come to conquer, not to be vanquished. Any little thing could trigger or tip us off.

* * *
Stadiums establish another sociological curiosity: for three shining hours, they put all men on the same level. People at a lower social strata in the business world get to rub shoulders with people they wouldn't otherwise meet. (Really rich -- or lucky -- folks in secluded, luxury skyboxes are exempt from this phenomenon.)

"You are relating indirectly to 70,000 other people who are cheering and booing and ooohing and aaahing along with you," Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum says. "Even though you don't even know them you are in some very strange, vague way connecting with them through this common interest."

The stands offer a cross-representation of American culture in most cities, although as ticket prices rise ahead of the rate of inflation, lower-income fans are being squeezed out. The average family of four cannot afford season tickets. One game a season is a special treat as today's outrageous ticket prices and attendant costs keep the wealthy in the stands and the rest of America on the couch.

"When I first became active in the early 1960s, it was very much a blue-collar fan group that was at the games," Dr. Bruce C. Ogilvie says. "Within a decade it became sort of an elitist fan group, stylish, and I'm sure industry reinforced that by making sections of seats available and buying booths and so on. Football gained increasingly more status in terms of the attendees."

When we go to the game in person we likely will not know the guy/jerk we sit next to. It could be anyone. But because we probably root for the same gang on the field, we could connect with somebody that we'd otherwise never meet.

Sometimes we find ourselves seated beside the enemy, or deep in enemy territory. Going out of town to cheer your team on foreign turf is akin to wearing a "Kick Me" sign. No book of etiquette governs these forays. Nobody wants to act as your host. Stick to the rules of the jungle: Scorn or be scorn. Kill or be killed.

Sitting next to someone who is cheering for the other team tests men in ways that cliff divers and rock climbers understand. Each word, each gesture begs confrontation, verbally or physically. A man can't be expected to sit idly by while his boys are attacked. It's an opportunity to get out your teasing, bantering, hostile side.

For instance, a Buc fan visiting Joe Robbie Stadium might say this to a Dolphin supporter:

"Piss off, you low-life, blowfish-worshipping boatlift refugee!"

To which the Dolphin might answer:

"Loser!"

At which point the Buc fan would shrug, buy another beer and pout about being so effectively dissed with a single word.

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

A Report From The Couch: Introduction to Why Men Watch Football

by Bob Andelman

"It's a brutal sport; I never play it. You've got to be an idiot to play. But I love to watch."

Larry Selvin
Financial accountant,
West Roxbury, Massachusetts

My attorney is a transplanted Washington Redskins fan who roots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by default -- they're the only game in town. Rick Georges loves football. He's been a Bucs season-ticket holder for years, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. He drives to home games in an RV fitted with a satellite dish on the roof so he can watch pre-game shows while tailgating at Tampa Stadium. When the Bucs game is over -- by the third quarter most Sundays -- he, his wife, Julie, and their daughter Nicole repair to the RV to watch more football -- preferably a 'skins game -- while the parking lot clears out.

If the Bucs are on the road, Rick is ready at home. He's got a dish on the roof; inside, all the sports channels are locked into remote-control memory. He merrily zaps from one geosynchronous orbit to the next without getting out of his La-Z-Boy. Rick's Super Bowl parties are remembered as much for his video toys as his pouting if Washington gets creamed.

Rick was the first person to whom I posed the question: Why do men love football?

"I think it's because we're not allowed, in this female-dominated society, to act out our aggressions," he said. "Plus, I like the colors of my team."

I knew this book was going to be fun.

Why Men Love Football was written to counter the explosion of self-absorbed "Iron Belly" men's literature that suggests real men get in touch with their feelings only by walking into some remote woods, strapping on a drum and getting buck naked with a bunch of sweaty, overweight executives who left their manhood locked up in a corporate vault.

Horseshit.

Real men adorn themselves in NFL-licensed tribal colors, drive to the nearest stadium, multi-video sports bar or just park themselves on the couch. They chant -- Deee-fence! -- elbow to bent elbow with a bunch of sweaty, overweight guys who pack their manhood in their Fruit of the Looms. They know the enemy isn't within; it's the rude dog out-of-towners down on the field.

This book shares the real-life experiences of men and football, drawn from dozens of interviews in every corner of the United States, plus expert testimony by a nonpareil team of nationally recognized sport psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists who provide color and play-by-play analysis.

While the fans -- who hang their emotions on the sleeves of the team they follow -- share intimate details of their football lives, the experts look at the individual and his motivation. They also discuss how sport reflects what goes on in our society.

"Some people say I'm too involved in football," attorney Peter Hendricks says. "Better than being addicted to the racetrack, wouldn't you say?"

Over and over I asked the question: Why do men love football?

"I think it is a metaphor for society," says Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen, a professor of sociology at Colorado State University. "Let's say you are an anthropologist and you want to go into some society and you don't understand it. You could look at the games people play as a shorthand way to understand that society. Who is playing them and who is not? Who is on the sidelines? Who is in charge? What kind of behavior are they doing? Is it violent? Is the emphasis on strategy rather than physical skills strength? Is this a male- or female-oriented society? You could see what happens at the event. Do they have a patriotic thing at the beginning or is there a prayer?"

Dr. Allen L. Sack, a professor of sociology and coordinator of the sports management program at the University of New Haven (Conn.) who played defensive end for Notre Dame during its 1966 championship season, also took the challenge.

"You find out why they think they watch football," he said. "Then you can talk to us to find out why they really do and try to decide whether we are simply arrogant and out of touch or whether we have something to contribute."

One more time: Why do men love football?

"I've never been asked that question before," Chicago Bear Report managing editor Larry Mayer said. "Except by my wife."

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!