It was a rough weekend for my sports teams, as the Chicago Cubs continued their march on trying to be the worst team in the National League, while the San Fransisco 49ers got ran over twice in the span of week. You better believe that I get upset over the losses and try to figure out what could have been done better for them to win. Maybe I wasn’t wearing my lucky socks or shirt, but they lost, and there is nothing I can do about that.
OK, let’s focus on the 49ers for a second. So they have lost two games in a row and have a losing record for the first time in the Harbaugh era. Not only did they lose, but they just looked uncomfortable and out of place. Is this time for everyone to get off the Kaepernick bandwagon? Just a few weeks back, everyone thought he was cooler than the other side of the pillow.
But it has looked a bit smaller every day. Once-kind fans are tweeting profanities to the quarterback (which he has responded to by favoriting — just another motivation for the youngster).
My point is, why do we as fans lose faith in players and teams so quickly? What makes us suddenly despise the person who once acted as the background of our smartphone? That one person we would spend countless hours watching on YouTube?
Maybe I have just grown up cheering for the losing team, as I was 3 the last time one of my beloved teams was the best. But sometimes we need more loyalty to our teams. We need to stand behind them when times don’t look so bright.
Whatever happened to times when you stood by your team through thick and thin? Don’t get me wrong; after a loss or a few losses, there are instances when the players or talent needs to be re-evalauted. But it seems like nowadays that if our team isn’t perfect, then we are upset and want the coach’s head on a platter. I have had my moments with frustration, everyone has, but a true fan sticks with it.
Boston Red Sox fans were rewarded in 2004 with their championship after many long years of suffering and faltering. Jimmy Fallon, in the movie “Fever Pitch,” puts it best with this quote.
Troy: “Why do we inflict this on ourselves?”
Ben: “Why? I’ll tell you why — ’cause the Red Sox never let you down.”
Troy: “Huh?”
Ben: “That’s right. I mean, why? Because they haven’t won a World Series in a century or so? So what? They’re here. Every April, they’re here. At 1:05 or at 7:05, there is a game. And if it gets rained out, guess what? They make it up to you. Does anyone else in your life do that? The Red Sox don’t get divorced. This is a real family. This is the family that’s here for you.”
This is a loyal fan who realizes that his team never truly lets him down.
How many people are going to be closet Jazz fans because they are going to struggle this year? They might even be a fan who was begging for the youth movement. With that being said, we need to have faith that things will get better. It may not be now, but it will eventually come. Let’s stay loyal and true to those teams that have brought us joy and heartache until the end.
