I think there are a few key distinctions that need to be made. There are varying strata of t-shirt fans. Some are more obnoxious than others. 1. The casual fan that gets behind the local team, typically for social purposes. 2. The fan that has no team to root for (Southwestern, Trinity, St Edwards, etc) and has to pick one, so they pick the in-state team. 3. The fan didn't attend, yet grew up supporting the team, and simply continues supporting the team. 4. The fan that didn't get in, but acts as though they are part of the community, refers to the team as "we", watches (on tv) t-shirt school regular season games instead of attending their own school's playoff games, cusses people out on internet message boards after losses, gets red-faced when anything negative is said about their t-shirt school, and regularly taunts actual (not t-shirt) fans of other schools. I think most people have no problem with 1-3. It's the #4 that earns the entire group a bad name.
Speaking of pro T-shirt fans there seems to be some teams that even though they are hot seem to defy picking up a lot of T-Shirt fans. The Patriots never seemed to pick up a lot of T-Shirt fans and neither did the Spurs or the Pistons.
I definately agree. There is no way I would root for Stanfurd if they were playing for a National Championship. I don't care if its Notre Dame or Miami U or anyother team I can't stand. You don't give up your rivalry especially because you know they will rub it in your face the next rivalry game.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=2141325 Is this a t-shirt fan? I like their humor.
in the austin area......95% of the spurs fans are the definition of "t-shirt" fan. all these people flying spurs flags on their cars, wearing championship shirts and stuff. weren't doing that when they sucked or were just a good team. that's all within the last couple of years with their success, and that can be said for the mavs too in the austin area. i can't remember seeing more than 5 people growing up in austin that wore anything with the mavs logo on it, now a decent portion of the city and the area are mavs fans...i'm just waiting for the rockets to be title contenders again and make a custom bumpersticker or sign or something that says "SO NOW you're a rockets fan? sorry too late to jump on ANOTHER bandwagon austin"
Sorry to kick you in the sack, but please don't call UH a scrappy underdog. It's an embarassment to real scrappy underdogs like the current C-USA Champions.
It's the #4 that I have the biggest problem with, but from your perspective. It sounds as if you're claiming you can't be a die-hard fan if you didn't go to the school. There are some people who love the University of Texas, or Texas A&M, much the same way they do with the Texans, Rockets or Astros. They're teams that represent a community, state and region. These days, however, lots of families can't afford the $18,000+ per year (usually around $75,000 total) that it takes to go to one of those for undergraduate school. Does that make them lesser fans? It doesn't to me. I was accepted but chose not to go to Texas, and finances were one of the reasons. However, I'm the farthest thing from bandwagon you can find. I've attended games since I was a little kid. I supported them during the many down years under Mackovic. I didn't just go to the Rose Bowl when it was the national championship. I went last year. I went to the Cotton Bowl two years before that, and the Holiday Bowl before that. And anyone who knows me from here knows I'm standing and screaming the entire time. Meanwhile, I have friends that did go to UT who are the exact opposite. I wouldn't say it to their faces, but they bandwagon. They go to the games to socialize. They left all the home games this year by halftime and showed up about 5 minutes before they started. They didn't even try to get Rose Bowl tickets last year, or Holiday and Cotton tickets the two years before that. But somehow they're the actual fans and I'm the t-shirt? At least to me, that's ridiculous. There are tons of absolute diehard fans out there who can't afford the $75,000 or so it takes to put their child through at least four years of undergraduate school. To me, being an "actual" or "t-shirt" fan has very little to do with whether you went to that institution... it's everything to do with your actions as a fan.
That's kind of a crappy attitude to have. You think OU needed a "sniff" of a championship? They were being supportive of UT, because after all, it's only a game.
Yeah, some of us didn't have access to Mommy and Daddy's American Express card and had to actually pay for everything ourselves. BWHAHAHAHA! I used to see people at Sam Houston wearing Texas and Texas A&M shirts all the time. I would NEVER do that. Luckily, that was 10 years ago and I've heard it's not like that anymore because I-AA sports are becoming more visible and mainstream. BTW, I will be decked out in Sam Houston gear (like I was when I went to the UH game this year) when I go watch us collect a paycheck from....er, uh play UT in football next year. I don't give a SWEET FEATHERY JESUS if people throw stuff at me because I will most likely be highly annebriated. Thank you, good night.
I did ! In fact I turned down a full CS scholarship to Rice to pay my way at SWT, then went to UT Grad school. What was your point again? DD
I actually think it is cool that A&M and OU fans want Texas to do well in a game with as much importance as the Rose Bowl. But then I think about if the Cubs went to the World Series, I'd give anything at all for them to lose. Or if the Jazz went to the Finals, the b****es better go down. I change my mind, what a bunch of douche bag, fairweather fans. How could you want your mortal enemies to win the championship?
So, who did you cheer for during last year's Rose Bowl? Assuming you cheered for UT, did you cheer for Michigan at all during the game?
Most people that receive scholarship offers from Rice are also worthy of receiving scholarship offers at other schools. You are saying Rice offered you a full ride (I have never heard of Rice doing this for a non-athlete), yet SWT did not? That's almost unbelievable.
That might be true in Texas but outside of Texas I've seen very few Spurs jerseys. Here in MN I see far more Lebron Cav's jerseys and Kobe Laker's jerseys. I see those almost as much as T-Wolves jerseys. On the football front obviously a lot of Packers and Vikes jerseys but then followed by Vick Atlanta Jerseys and still a lot of Cowboys jerseys. I've seen people wearing Cowboys and Vick jerseys to VIkings Packer Games which is one of the biggest NFL rivalrys.
No, OU definitely didn't need a sniff of the championship. But I think they hopped on at the chance to see someone exact some revenge on USC for the way they got "done" at the Orange Bowl. Crappy attitude, eh? To each his own, I guess. The "it's only a game" attitude tends to correspond to a lot of people trying to come to grips with a season they feel was less than successful. Personally, I take losses hard, but it makes the wins sweeter. Maybe I care more than I should, but that directly relates to my attitude about cheering for rivals of UT, and for those rivals cheering for the Longhorns as well.
It's funny, because as a kid, I didn't really like UT or the Aggies. They all seemed somewhat obnoxious to me. I latched onto Michigan sports around 1989 when that whole NCAA tourney run they had behind Glen Rice, Rumeal Robinson et al. inspired me. I really got into Michigan football, too, at the time. Maybe it was the uniforms, maybe it was seeing them on tv all the time, who knows. As a kid, there's lots of reasons to rally behind a team, not all of them good ones. But, I did stick with them growing up, and there were actually my favorite college team before Texas ever was. I was accepted to Michigan, but couldn't afford it at all. I decided to go to Texas, and loved it. Loved the atmosphere, the sports teams, the city, being somewhat close to friends and family. And after years of going to so many basketball and football games, and just being around the people, they became far and away "my" team. It was kinda bittersweet to see the two teams play in the Rose Bowl, but exciting as well. I cheered for UT all the way, just as I did when they matched up with Syracuse in the Final Four. However, sometimes I might have a hard time cheering for a team that beats UT to go on and succeed. In these cases, I still wanted the Cuse to win it all, and I'm still a big Michigan fan. It's rare when my favorite teams' paths "intersect," but when they do, I pull for Texas all the way now. I was still pissed when I went to the Alamo Bowl and saw Michigan lay a brick against Nebraska, but not as bothered as I would be if Texas lost a game.... Hope that answers your question.
I don't know what kind of fan that I would be labeled. I started of at UT-Austin for 3 1/2 yrs, but I ended up graduating from A&M. I've been a die hard Longhorn fan the whole time. I was probably the onle A&M undergrad that was a die hard Longhorn, so that was kind of interesting. The first thing that I noticed when I first went to A&M was the difference between Aggies (students) vs. Aggie T-shirt fans. My experience with Aggie fans back then were that many of them were obnoxious and uneducated. These were the T-shirt fans that couldn't make it a Blinn, much less A&M. I found real Aggie students to be very classy and bright. I was able to be open in class about being a Longhorn fan with no problems except for friendly trash-talking. I understand why there are T-shirt fans out there because here in Austin, the Longhorns are the big teams. We don't have any major pro teams, so everyone pulls for the 'Horns. In the more rural areas around H-town and Dallas, many people embrace the Aggies, since it's an agricultural school. All understandable.
I had a full ride to Rice through a fellowship/fund in my hometown of Baytown, I won the state's computer progamming contest my junior and senior years, 81-82, and was offered full ride to Rice. I took a smaller scholarship to SWT instead, and switched my major after one semester to pay may own way. Rice was just too close to home and SWT had 4 girls to every guy.....I had perspective at a young age, and knew that college choice mattered VERY little at the end of the day. I preferred to drink my way through college and chase women...it was a good choice, I think. However, my father and I did not speak for 2 years after I made the choice, he was a bit pissed off. He did not want to pay, so I bartended my way through...which was a GREAT choice IMHO. DD
