From the Sidelines: The battle of the fans

By Soraya Victory

The first sign that our leagues were not compatible came when one of my friends started calling the players by their first names; meanwhile, if not for their jerseys, I wouldn't have been able to name a single player on either team. My next clue was when one of them said, "Did you know Yancey Thigpen had 175 yards receiving against Denver?" and I wondered, "That's a lot, right?" I knew for certain that we couldn't enjoy the game-watching experience together when they got even more excited as the beer commercials came on. I had been interested in seeing a bit of the contest, but suddenly I wished we were watching reruns of Charles in Charge or some other program with universal appeal.

The same kind of thing happened during the Duke-Kentucky game in the South regional final of the NCAA tournament. My roommate and I ventured into the JE buttery to watch the contest for a little while before getting on with our Saturday night. We endured a couple of sarcastic remarks from our male friends regarding our amateur fan status, but we had to draw the line at, "You see, that basket counted for three points because he shot from outside that arc." We left and went to The Anchor. Too bad, because we had been psyched to watch the game.

The phenomenon of fans spouting facts and getting supremely frustrated by the amateur enthusiast seems exclusive to sports. People with advanced technical knowledge of music, for example, don't usually run off at the mouth when listening to the radio. The average listener may hear "My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titantic)" and think, "Dude, that's one hell of a cheesy song. But I like when they say, `Iceberg, right ahead!'" But the musician would not retort with, "Interesting, in switching from F major to F sharp minor, the key change in `Love Theme from Titanic' aspires to be a modulation to the Neopolitan flat II chord, yet it fails to make any harmonic sense in that it contains the same third as the tonic." Neither one will want to change the station out of frustration, unless of course they're sick of hearing Celine Dion for the 119th time.

The same theory applies to the art world: critics and artists may understand the value of Van Gogh's self-portraits more than the casual viewer, who thinks, "Wow, that's one depressed man," but they would probably not torment their poor companion by raving about the painterly brushstroke and contextual significance.

Yet die-hard sports fans seem to feel the need to rattle off their store of statistics, as if such information is in some way a testament to their masculinity and devotion to athletics. They should realize that they're not the only ones who are impressed by a 25-yard dash to the endzone, and that even people with a casual interest in sports can be rapt with attention when the Bulls are down a point with one minute left to play.

My mother is the perfect example of an eager amateur: she may refer to Michael Jordan as "that fellow in the Nike ads," and she may not have any idea what team he plays for, but when he soars through the air and dunks, she'll be out of her seat with his most ardent followers.

I watch sports to be blown away by the skill of athletes, to see New York beat anyone in anything, and to be inspired to get up from the couch and do something active for once. I don't need statistics, I don't need names, and I certainly don't need women in bikinis drinking Miller Lite to appreciate outstanding athleticism and the excitement of competition. So when 8 p.m. comes around on Sun., Apr. 19 and I want to see the Knicks take on Chicago, I'm going to watch the game with my mom.

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