The Impact of Fandom

 

My Older Brother,
back when a Senior could
drive the school bus

I must begin with my credentials, so you will not think that I am just someone who doesn't know a football from a basketball.  I was a high school cheer leader, and I once sat through a football game with a clear plastic trash bag over my body to keep the drizzling rain off.  I could provide more credentials, but you get the point.

The point is that my fandom credentials are apparently out of date.  Obviously, my idea that fans go to games to cheer for touchdowns and baskets is no longer enough.  I thought wearing school team colors was enough, but apparently dressing as a banana, or baring your chest along with some buddies to spell out the school name across your bodies--preferably knowing how to spell so you can get lined up to properly spell the name--is more acceptable.

Team support is no longer limited to yelling loudly--which I certainly practiced enthusiastically--but stomping your feet so loudly that construction strength is vulnerable and doing it well before anything is happening on the court is mandatory.  

Ok, I get that, sort of, but here is what really disturbs me.  I thought sports had something to do with encouraging being good sports, playing by the rules, focusing on a habit of good health.  In short, behaving like the players in 'Chariots of Fire.'  How out of touch I am!

In doing my research for this blog, I learned that sports are more than a game.  It is really about the importance of Fan Experience!  What is important is that fans leave the game feeling that they were a part of a unified group, that their self-esteem was justifiably raised because their team won and they played a role in the victory. 

Unfortunately, fans of the losing team may feel the responsibility of supporting their losing team with   rude and disruptive behavior. heckling, throwing tantrums, blaming the referees.  The old logic of my era might have criticized the referees, but in general we left the game with comments of "there is always next year, we almost won, if we hadn't run out of time we still had a chance to win, we will beat them in the tournament"  These responses for some fans today seem to be declining.

In my research, I discovered an article in which the author set up a sort of joke, putting together   irrational fan-based pairs, with nothing in common, and asking fans to vote which was worst.  It was such a useless challenge that she expected only a few friends to respond, but instead, over 17,000 votes were cast.  

What I concluded in reading her little senseless contest is that there is something inside us that challenges us to choose.  I suppose that in writing this blog I am also choosing.  Somehow, we do seem to need to decide one thing over another, and once we choose the unchosen thing is suddenly "less than."  In politics, life is much like a basketball game.  There is our team and the other team, and we favor our team.  And, like the silly game the woman set up as a sort of joke, there may be very little reason to favor one team over the other, but once we make our choice it inevitably influences us.

I began this blog to be about sports, but I could not help applying Fandom to politics.  Do we sometimes choose our political party in the same ways fanbases are chosen?  For example, Loyalty across generations, Expectations of others, Frustration during struggles, The need to be a part of community.  Those explanations were taken from an article on sport's traditions, yet they seem quite applicable to politics.

So, during the World Series season, when you choose your team, you might reflect on just how we humans choose our favorite sides, and whether it makes any sense.             

   

Advice from Atticus

 As an attorney, I have often talked with young people considering a career as a lawyer, some of whom had already been accepted and were asking for my advice.  I always tell them the same thing.  Read To Kill a Mockingbird.  

The wisdom in that book by Harper Lee is the best advice I can offer.  It is the story of a Southern attorney asked to represent a young black man wrongly accused.  His young daughter is taunted at school for the fact that her father has agreed to represent a Black man.  Those who taunted her used a vulgar word, which she repeated to her father' 

Before explaining why he had agreed to represent the young man, he corrected her use of the vulgar word.  

She tries to justify using the vulgar word by saying " 'its what everybody at school says."  Her father replies, "From now on it will be everybody less one--"

He gives his daughter a little description of the young black man, gently personalizing who he is, but admitting that "There's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man."

She responds, "If you shouldn't be defendn' him, then why are you doin' it?

"For a number of reasons," said Atticus.  "The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again."  

"You mean that if you didn't defend that man, Jem and me wouldn't have to mind you any more?"

"That's about right."

"Why?'

"Because I could never ask you to mind me again.  Scout, simply by the nature of the work every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally.  This one's mine, I guess.  You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will:  you just hold your head high and keep those fists down.  No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat.  Try fighting with your head for a change...it's a good one, even if it does resist learning."

I don't know how many young women and men have taken my advice and have read "To Kill a Mockingbird" but I hope that some did.  If you have not read it, I would encourage you to find a copy and read it.  

Harper Lee was well known for declining to correspond with her fans.  I never expected a reply, but I decided to write to her.  To my complete surprise, she replied.  She was elderly at that time, and she apologized for her shaky writing, but she filled two pages in reply to what I had shared in my letter.  Her letter is one of my greatest treasures. 

A personal note:

Some of you who follow this blog know that I graduated from Baylor University School of Law and practiced in Texas for several years until my husband's career took us to Georgia and North Carolina, where I took the bar and was licensed in both of those states.  However, my career path changed to publishing 3 books, written for general readers but researched in depth.  I started sharing this blog while writing "Prairie Bachelor, The Story of a Kansas Homesteader & the Populist Movement".  My goal has always been to inform readers in a way that is interesting, and I try to do the same with this blog.  I think Harper Lee did the same thing in "To Kill a Mockingbird".  She did not try to lecture her readers, but she told a story that gave her readers food for thought.

I believe we live in troubled times today.  I try to do what Harper Lee did.  I try to give you food for thought, and a perspective you may not have considered.  A great deal of research goes into each blog I write.  I don't intend to tell you what to think, but I hope I may give you something to think about.      

Solutions Instead of Criticisms

A World War One Poster

  Recently I came across a letter to President John F. Kennedy, preserved in the National archives.  A young man wrote:  "Dear President Kennedy, I would like to know why, in this age of stress on physical fitness, there are still paunchy teachers around.  These teachers are supposed to be good examples to us poor, disgusted kids.  We kids do the exercises the teachers tell us, while the teachers stand around talking to other teachers.  How are we supposed to believe exercises are worth it if the teachers don't seem to be interested.  I move that a new law be passed that requires teachers to keep themselves in the pink too."  The young man added, "P.S.  Even some of the Scoutmasters have midriff bulge."  President Kennedy did not pass the law the young man proposed.

Today, obesity in America is a major health issue, associated with numerus diseases, increasing risk to cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease and others.  Of particular concern is the increase of obesity in children.  In addition, obesity has led to fewer citizens being able to join the military. 

A common presumption is that obesity is the result of a lack of willpower, failure to exercise, and
failing to eat properly.  However, many things may be involved.  Among them are such things as medications, poor sleep, stress, access to affordable food, safe places to be active, and simply being unable to walk safely in one's own neighborhood.  I would add that during covid poor eating habits may have developed that remain. 

As I read the young man's letter to the president, I could not resist wondering about where he is today, and if he is healthy and physically fit.  It is sometimes easy to see those overweight and make critical judgements, but the better response is understanding the possible reasons for obesity and supporting the ways to reduce the causes.  

Right now, we are in a problem with providing health care, especially in rural communities.  Of course, those with problems related to obesity need to participate in the recommendations to help improve their health.  However, simply judging those who are overweight isn't a solution.  And, cutting back on medical care for rural communities isn't helpful either.  It is especially a time for government assistance to be based on research, not personal opinions.     

A Consideration for All of Us

First, do some old-fashioned research!

 When I watched a student sit-in on the television, I could only wonder how informed those students were, and whether they were interfering with classes other students wanted to attend.  I would have preferred seeing them in the library, researching the complex history (or whatever it was that they chose to protest) rather than sitting in tents blocking other students trying to get to class, and protesting with people who already agree with them.  

Today education is far more complicated than when I went to college.  Often universities are the biggest employers in the town or city.  They are often the cultural source not only for the students, but also for the city and surrounding area.  Some provide clinics and health screenings.  Stores in the city often depend on the students as customers, as well as employees for the city's businesses.

At larger universities there may be important activities beyond classrooms, such as Laboratories doing intensive medical research that requires undisturbed work.  Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Programs in the Arts and other activities having nothing to do with the issue that protesting students are interrupting.  These opportunities beyond the traditional classroom may allow students to work alongside men and women outstanding in their fields, allowing the students to learn more than they otherwise would from lecture halls and assigned reading.  Protests that interfere with the rights of others deserve serious reflection and respect for what they are interrupting.

While it is important for students to be aware beyond the classroom, and the right to speak and demonstrate are valued principles of our Constitution, the balance of the rights of others are also important.  I believe that too often issues important to protestors serve a disappointing purpose and an unnecessary disruption.  Freedom of speech and public protests are valuable gifts protected by our    Constitution.  They deserve thoughtful preparation.

Marches and sit-ins have been positively effective to our history.  Often, inconveniencing others has been important in bringing attention to the issue.  What I would hope is that those of us who use our important American right of speech and protest recognize what valuable rights we have, and before we join the protest or use our right of freedom of speech, we pause long enough to reflect on and understand what we are protesting and why we feel it is important to protest.  

Whether you are a student or a senior citizen, before you pick up a protest sign or block the route of others, I hope all of us remember what and why we are protesting and that we use our privileges of protesting thoughtfully.  I prefer to see protestors prepared to discuss issues rather than screaming back and forth, and I definitely dislike angry voices that have not taken the time to understand the issue they proport to explain.  Our right to protest in invaluable.  It must never be taken from us, and it deserves the thoughtful use of that privilege.