Elitorial: For the love of your team

It was January, 1985, just six weeks after my sixth birthday when I became hooked on NFL football. I distinctly remember sitting in my parents' bedroom, watching intently as the San Francisco 49ers dominated the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX. As the game progressed, I asked questions about the strange numbers flashing across the bottom of the screen ("What does first and ten mean?") and about why when one player dropped the ball, the other team could get it, and at other times nobody even tried to pick it up.

That was the first football game I ever watched and (mostly) understood, and consequently, I decided to take whichever team won the game and make them into my favorite club. At that point I didn't really care whether it was the guys in red or the guys in white whom I would root for in the future, but I wanted to be able to cheer for somebody.

As Joe Montana, Roger Craig (then nothing more to me than number 16 and number 33), and the rest of that Niners squad walked off the field after their triumph, they had not only earned their second of what would be four Vince Lombardi Trophies of the '80s, but they had also gained the lifelong admiration and devotion of one first-grader from Long Island.

Having a favorite team makes being a fan in any given sport immeasurably more exciting. Every game in which your team is playing becomes an intense emotional experience, and all other contests take on greater meaning as you begin to think about how their outcomes might affect your club's future. Football trailed only baseball for many years in terms of my fan loyalty.

The life of a sports fan is much simpler when one chooses allegiances based on geographical location. It's possible to attend games in person, and there is never a question about local television and radio coverage. But I found myself connected through that special first game to the 49ers, and it was something that I just couldn't give up simply for the ease of rooting for, say, the New York Jets. Instant attachment cannot always be explained logically.

Consider the NCAA basketball tournament, where fans will cheer wildly for teams they haven't even heard of prior to tip-off. Maybe they like a particular player. Maybe they like rooting for the underdog. Maybe they just like the color of a uniform. Like my relationship with the 49ers, allegiances can form quickly and strongly, and they are hard to dissolve.

As with supporting any out-of-town club, being a Niners fan and living in New York was difficult. But seeing as my parents weren't going to let me head out to the West Coast just for football season, I had to make the best of it. Instead of watching games on television, I had to satisfy myself with updates every 20 minutes on the radio.

San Francisco teams don't get too much coverage in the regular New York broadcast and print media, so I subscribed to 49ers Report magazine to keep up with my favorite squad. As the Niners-Giants rivalry heated up in the late '80s and early '90s, I couldn't watch games with my friends anymore. Even watching with my Dad, himself a long-time New York Giants fan, was a struggle.

My first (and only) experience attending an NFL game was so traumatic that this weekend's Yale-Princeton contest will be the first time I will have stepped foot in Giants Stadium since the age of eight. It was almost exactly two years from when I had first adopted the Niners that I went to watch them take on the Giants in a playoff game.

Not only did the red and gold get trounced by the eventual Super Bowl champs, but I had to listen as fans close to us saved their loudest cheers and most vulgar profanity for when my hero (Montana) was laid out on the nearly frozen turf for several minutes, and eventually carted off with what was thought to be a career- ending injury. If there were ever a time to make a reversal and throw my support behind the Big Blue, it was then--but even at that point knew that nothing was going to change.

Much is made in sports today of frequent player movement through free agency that damages fan loyalty, of escalating salaries that take the fun out of watching games, and of ownership squabbles that diminish interest. Far more important than individuals in any professional sports are the teams. During the 1987 NFL strike, I cheered ardently for the scabs in San Francisco's colors. Sure, they weren't Jerry Rice and Ronnie Lott, but they still had SF on their helmets. My favorite teams should know that until they cease to exist, they will always have at least one dedicated supporter.

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