As a kid, I remember thinking it was pathetic. Why did diehard sports fans stick with their teams through thick and thin, despite years of disappointment and grief? Those grizzled, grim-faced Cubs or Red Sox fans tugged at my heartstrings a bit, but they also seemed to be gluttons for punishment. Why not move on already? Nobody says “I do” to a sports franchise.
I did understand from childhood that fanhood involves pain. My father has a long memory for such things. He has never fully recovered from watching the Utah Jazz lose to the referees, I mean Chicago Bulls, in 1998. But apparently the apple doesn’t fall far, because I now find myself in middle age, having stood by my team ever since the afternoon of September 5, 1998, when the Fighting Irish beat the defending-champion Wolverines, with a young Tom Brady quarterbacking for Michigan, and a young Rachel Smith in the stands. That’s a quarter-century that I’ve been cheering, cheering for old Notre Dame, without ever having the pleasure of watching them hoist the crystal football.
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