The Fan - A Cautionary Tale of Bad Behavior and Porta-Potties

Fans. The lifeblood of any sport. Without fans, there would be no arenas, multi-million dollar salaries, sports agents, televised sports events, etc. No superstars, nor their DUI's, arrests for illegally carrying guns (sometimes shooting others with them, sometimes shooting themselves), fines for testing positive for controlled substances. Speaking of televised sports events, I'm not referring to things like bass fishing, curling, or even golf - those are sports events in much the same way that Monsanto is an organic agriculture firm. I really can't understand why anyone wants to watch these things, let alone do them. They are basically 98% waiting for something interesting to happen; something I don't desire on a sports channel. This is why we have C-SPAN (okay, that's 99.95% waiting for something interesting to happen). And no activity involving a broom can ever be considered a sport - I'm talking to you, curling. That's just housekeeping. With rocks. On ice. Meh.

And fans come in many varieties: good, bad, indifferent and truly embarrassing. Good fans, predictably, even though desirable (especially to be within earshot of), would be, by definition, boring. They cheer for their teams, don't argue calls, never criticize the coach and wish only the best for the other team. I say "would be", because they do not exist, at least in my experience. They may have all committed suicide. Bad fans, however, are out in great quantities, are MUCH more interesting, and come in different varieties:

The "referee" fan. This guy knows more about the rules of whatever game he's watching than any human being, ever. They have super-vision, allowing them to see what we mere mortals (and the trained referees) missed. Unsurprisingly, their own team never commits a penalty, foul or similar infraction, but the opposing team is guilty on virtually every single play. This is also the same fan, who, after having watched their kid play soccer for the last 15 years, STILL does not understand the concept of the offside penalty, and hasn't even heard of "advantage" - but they will gleefully scream offsides after every goal by the opposing team, as if it will magically erase the score. When asked why they don't go and get their referee license since they know the sport so well, usually tell you they don't have the time, which is code for: I can't pass the licensing test.

The "connected" fan. They are the opposite of the "living vicariously through my children" fan. Easy to spot, these fans either have their heads buried in their mobile devices or are deeply involved in a conversation (having nothing whatsoever to do with the sporting event they are attending) with another "connected" fan. Truly gifted connected fans can do both simultaneously. They are thereby able to claim that they attend their children's games, without the annoyance of ever having actually watched any of them. These are the fans who are completely unaware that something has occurred until the cheering or booing begins, and then are suddenly interested: "What happended?" "Your son just broke both his legs trying to bicycle-kick the ball." "Oh, I'm sure he'll be okay - excuse me, I have to look up what a bicycle-kick is." These fans don't really bother anyone else, and are usually taken care of via karma. Karma, at least in the soccer games I've attended, is when this fan, sitting 5 feet from the field of play in their folding chair while their attention is focused on their phone, gets hit soundly in the side of the face by a soccer ball traveling upwards of 900 miles per hour, usually knocking the parent to the ground and disintegrating the phone. Typically it will have been kicked by the fan's offspring; atypically, while the child performs a bicycle kick.

The "living vicariously through my children" fan. We all know this guy (it's usually a guy, but sometimes it's a woman, and for some reason, they're actually worse) - it's all negative criticism with no positive feedback: "How could you miss that catch?", "Hey, why don't you open your eyes?" "C'mon, get up, you're not hurt - if you can't see bone, it''s not broken!", etc. It's a pretty safe bet this kind of fan SUCKED when they played, but convinced their kids they themselves were the equivalent of Peyton Manning when they played. If they played at all. They pray their kids never run into one of their former classmates, otherwise the jig's up: "Your dad? On the football team? Seriously? He was always too high to play!". They are bellicose, to the point where they appear not to even require inhaling; it just is one long endless stream of profanity-laced criticism. They are totally focused on the game, and have trained themselves not to blink for long periods of time so as not to miss a single moment of play. Almost every statement begins with, "When I played...". No one likes to be near them, except, of course, others of their ilk, but everyone else will do almost anything to be away from them, including, but not limited to, sitting atop the porta-potty. Get a few of these fans in the same spot and there will likely be suicidal drownings in those porta-potties. But not at curling matches - they usually just wander out onto the ice into oblivion. Those medieval Scotts knew how to handle adversity in a socially acceptable way. Peace.