No Fairweather Fans Here

So, if you have not heard this before, my biggest pet-peeve is when someone is a fairweather fan. You can be a fan of any football team and you don't have to have any good reasons to be a fan...I mean...look at Colt fans. While I was in high school my frustration with fairweather fans developed. I even wrote an article about it in the school newspaper. Not many people liked the article because...I think...they knew I was talking about them.

Fairweather fans are those who only like a team when they are doing well. For instance...Colt fans. They are the ones that spurred the article in the first place. The year was 1995. Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback and the Colts were entering the playoffs. It was just four years earlier that the Colts went 1-15 for the season and just 8-8 in 1994. Things were different now. Not because they were in the playoffs...while that was different. No...things were different because there were fans! The Colts were winning and people were supporting them. I predicted that year in my article...I remember my words clearly..."When they lose...and they will lose...no one will care about the Colts anymore." Within 2 years the Colts' record was 3-13 and the fans were gone. They then drafted a quarterback from Tennessee and some fans began to pop up. Now they win games and there are fans again. Shocking! Many of these people grew up in the very area in which the Colts play...and they finally become fans when the team could be considered "winners". They never even acknowledged that the team was there before. What will happen, I wonder, when they struggle again like they did for so many years? Will the fans turn back to the Pacers...who they have bailed on...since they don't win like they used to?

If you can't tell or don't know, I don't like the Colts (if you don't know that...you don't know me very well). So imagine my frustration. All these fairweather fans watch their team win (who they have supported for a couple of years and claim that "I have always like the Colts") while I, who have remained a Dolphins fan since I was five years old am enduring a season that could end up 0-16...while I do not think it will.

People have asked me..."Why do you like the Dolphins? They suck!" My response...well...I guess it is loyalty. For me it is not about following a winner. That would be selfish on my part wouldn't it? I mean...do I really need a sports team to fulfill some void in my life of overcoming something or of being better than someone else? I hope not. I could always go cheer for the Patriots. They win. But...then I wouldn't be a fan. I would just be a passenger on the bandwagon waiting for the next one to drive by.

An article was recently posted on the Miami Herald's website about the Dolphin fans' viewing habits. Viewership is up. We have not won a game...but more people are watching than years past. Why is that? Because we are fans. We are not fickle. We are loyal. I am proud to be a Dolphins fan. Being a fan in a season like this provides some sort of ownership of my fandom. It is a season like this that builds a real fan...not a fairweather fan...not a Colt fan (I had to get one more jab in there).

Tomorrow I leave for Buffalo to attend the Dolphins vs. Bills game. Win or lose...I am still a Dolphins fan...just maybe a little more frustrated. So...enough with the questions on why I am still a Dolphins fan. Because...the question is really more telling of the asker's fandom than my response is of mine.