Actually, I never asked you anything and obviously, I did not mean that when you move away as you get older, you abandon your hometown team, not sure how you inferred that. You are from Houston and thus are a Houston sports fan.
I'm done being a smartass. The one problem that will let anyone poke a hole in that argument: Anyone can claim that connection. I have a friend that has lived in Houston his entire life that is a Lakers fan and talks **** to me about the Rockets. His excuse is that his brother always loved the Lakers and taught him to be a fan. When he wore his Lakers shirt to our fantasy football draft, I continuously ripped on him because he looked like an idiot. That's what it comes down to. Looking like an idiot. If you can pull it off without looking dumb, it still annoys me, but at least you have some dignity. Who can judge how strong your connection to a school is? There is no denying it if you went there.
So, you are saying there is no difference between family ties to a university, and a brother randomly liking a pro sports team?
but what if you went there and didn't like it? The answer to your query as to the identity of he who can judge the "[strength] of an [emotional] connection" to a group of sweaty strangers chasing a spheroid around an arena is he who posits the existence of such connection - not a default assumption based largely on geography/proximity, without even a temporal element, as you urge us to accept.
I've never understood how T-shirt fans can supposedly exist for colleges and not professional teams. You never hear about someone being a "t-shirt" Cowboys fan, even though there are millions of them if you use the exact same definition the Aggies and a few other put forth. I know countless folks with zero direct connection to Dallas or the team - their only connection is that they grew up watching the team and as a fan, and it kept with them. The mentality that college sports are "only" meant for the people who go to those respective colleges is absurd. Yes, the billions upon billions that get thrown into college football and basketball - it's all designed for a select ffew that actually graduate from that university. Colleges represent the city, region and sometimes state that they're in, just as professional teams do. This is not rocket science. The percentage of the population that has a college degree is far below 50%. Moreover, even among those that do have a degree, only a very small percentage were academically and/or financially able to go to the exact university of their choosing. For those that aren't, I guess their entire pre-college life should just be eliminated? Nearly 20 years of supporting a team - the same logic almost everyone respects for declaring professional fandom - just goes out the window? Hypothetical question. Let's say you grow up in, say, Santa Fe, New Mexico and graduate from a community college. No professional team in the state. By y'alls logic, the cheering for the universities in the state is also unacceptable without a degree. So I guess they're not allowed to identify with or support anything without being a t-shirt fan? Sounds like you guys think they shouldn't even follow sports.
This is what annoys me. Like I said, I'm fine with people cheering for anyone they want. I can easily see how people can form a connection without actually attending a school. But don't talk trash to me about it. Especially if you weren't smart enough to get in the school (or even attend college at all), because I will be bringing that up next.
The problem with this is that it assumes an inherent connection between going to a school and an athletic program. I didn't go to the University of Texas - rather, I turned them down to go to a school that was better for what I do. But I've lived and breathed UT sports for practically my entire life. I was at the very first Big XII title game in St. Louis, one of only 3,000 Texas fans among a swarm of Huskers. I was at both Rose Bowls. I was at the UT Final Four. I was also at games in the 4-7 Mackovic year (1997), as well as the abortion of a basketball season in 2010. I've spent enormous time and money following the team, just as I do the Texans/Rockets/Astros, and am invested significantly in each game. Meanwhile, I have several friends who went to UT because it's the premiere public institution in the state, but went to one or two athletic events in their entire time on campus, and whose knowledge consists only of the QB of the football team. They could care less win or lose and don't even know who is on the basketball team. But somehow, they're more qualified than me as a basketball fan because they sat in on an economics class in Austin with a random European professor? If you want to claim it's not possible to have a "real" connection of any significance without actually spending time in a campus classroom, I suppose that's fine. But by that exact same logic, it should be impossible for most people to have a "real" connection to a professional sports team. That's the crux of my issue with the t-shirt fan argument. When it comes down to it, it's simply illogical unless you have the same standard for pro fans - and yet hardly anyone makes that argument.
I've tried to make the pro sports team argument... but usually the response is "it's not the same thing" so it really goes no where.
Yeah I expect that response, but it's just illogical hogwash from someone trying to make themselves feel superior, as Major previously explained. If it's impossible to have a "real" connection simply based on following a team itself, then the entire conception of professional sports fanbases is a farce.
fwiw, I think the analogy is something like pro team : city :: college team : school A few posters in this thread have mentioned having some disdain for Lakers or Cowboys fans that grew up in Houston. I think the issue the OP is having is more related to bandwagon fans than "t-shirt" fans. To me, the "t-shirt" designation just means that the fan didn't attend the school (I mean, what is a fan if not someone that wears a t-shirt with their team on it?), although the connotation seems to imply more bandwagon-ish characteristics, which is why these threads always have a kind of anti-UT slant to them (not that there's anything wrong with that )
The problem with that analogy is that if that were the case, why isn't the money for college sports about .01% that of professional sports? Why do schools sell tickets to the general public? If supporting a college team were intended by the universities to only represent the alumni, you wouldn't have ESPN paying millions upon millions for college football and hoops packages. Also, what if you don't grow up in a city with or near a professional team? I guess you're not allowed to be a fan of anything? Third, what makes professional sports so different that I can hypothetically bond with the Houston Rockets simply by watching Kyle Lowry dribble a basketball, but I'm not allowed to establish the same bond with the Texas Longhorns by watching Cory Joseph dribble a ball?
"T-Shirt" fans are why the bowl games make as much money as they do.. same can be said for March Madness.
[interrupts pissing contest] The long and short of it is that I wanted a BSN from a major university. UT might have 1,500 applicants/year, 800 of whom have 4.0 GPA's in their prerequisite course work, for only 200 open slots/year. I had a 3.4. I could have waited and retaken some classes to bump it up, but after nursing school cuts everyone who doesn't have a 4.0, they cut the people who took a class more than once to bump themselves up to a 4.0, so there was no guarantee there. I could be done at 34 years old or I could still be trying to get in down here at 38. It's pretty ridiculous how difficult it can be to get in. Most people have no clue, really. OU accepted me, so I went there. [/interrupts pissing contest]
[Aggies] We don't care about your story!!! You didn't go to the school you are rooting for, therefore YOU = T-SHIRT FAN!!!!11!1!! Unless you want to root for A&M. Then it's okay.[/Aggies]
I think the Aggie cheerios are being collectively urinated upon by the non-UT/A&M attending public and that is the root cause of this laughable attempt at smarminess. Nobody can out-smug a Longhorn. But DonnyMost and I are holding it down for the Coog nation of wise-asses.
Oh spare me. Some people can't go for various reasons but it's ok to **** talk them about NOT going. What if they were smart enough, but something came up, and the family was all UT? A family member works at the school for decades (like my gf's pops at UCLA...guess who she's roots for?) News flash, you high and mighty assholes...it's older people in their 60s that LIVE in the cities where the school is. Going to stop 67 year old Jim, a Gainesville native from rooting for the Gators? Child please. Hater men and hater women have hater kids. It is what it is. I'm a go tell one of my buddies that he can't root for the Aggies because he didn't go there...even though he's been riding with that school for years and never attended the damn school.
I feel ya, and I generally fall on your side of the argument. Another point (separate from what I said earlier), is that I think the fact that UT Athletics is such a booming enterprise and is mass-marketed, small/less athletically-focused school alums can't really relate to the idea that a school will have fans that have nothing to do with the school itself. (Although, that doesn't explain why so many Aggies are up in arms). And speaking as small/less athletically-focused school alum, I do think there's a difference between the connection between how one feels about their pro teams their college teams that I think comes from being a part of the same institution as the college teams, whereas it's next to impossible to get that close to a pro team.* *these are my opinions
