how's the weather, fair?


bethlehem shoals from freedarko (anyone that's interested in mixing philosophy with the nba should take a look) posted an entry yesterday that included a comment that made me perk up and take a personal inventory. in observing the nba's current cinderellas (golden state) in their current series versus the jazz, shoals came to this conclusion. "i only like the warriors when they're winning." only if you've kept up with freedarko as the warriors completed the biggest nba playoff upset ever could you feel the total weight of the statement. shoals had gone so far as to compare the runamokedness of the warriors' game to jazz (the music, not the team) only a week or so ago. he was completely in love. as was most of the nba nation. and why not? they were only taking every model of what the perfect playoff basketball team was and eating it alive kicking and screaming. their coach was called a mad scientist. their players called castoffs, and that was only when people were being polite. but their brand of playground-times-ten basketball confused the "best team in the nba" and sent their mvp home to collect his mvp trophy at an embarrassing news conference instead of prior to a playoff game.

but the sheen on the new car that is/was the warriors has started to fade in the second round. you see, there was a reason they had to play themselves into the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. there were reasons why they were a .500 team. "the best team in the nba" just couldn't figure out those reasons. probably because their "mvp" sucks, but that's been documented on every sports site. i guess it makes sense that shoals and others are falling out of love with the warriors. it's the same feeling that people get when george mason type teams start to advance in the ncaa tournament. it's exciting at first, but then you realize that they suck and you hope they lose before they start completely ruining your bracket.

what this got me thinking of, though, was how often i am guilty of being a fairweather fan. which teams do i swear allegiance to even when times are tough? even with my "live or die" teams (alabama football and basketball, braves, falcons), i have turned my back on them. when the braves started going downhill last season (their first bad year in 15 years!!! how ridiculously not loyal am i???), i stopped watching games and had no interest in trying to find a way over to atlanta to catch a game in person. hell, the braves are a half game out of first today and when i heard that john smoltz hurt himself when i got home from work last night, i almost decided to mail the rest of the year in as a loss. don't even get me started about alabama sports. i hate those teams more often than i love them. that's painfully obvious from which emotion inspires me to write about them. trust me. this blog's archives document it clearly.

the more i thought about it, the more i came to my own epiphany, thanks in part to the guy from freedarko coming to his. i am completely, totally, 100 percent over the top a fairweather fan. i've become (or maybe always have been) what i have claimed to hate the most. the type of sports fan that claim "they lived through the dale murphy years" (like me.) or "wish that nick saban becomes the new bear" when they only know of the bear's legend (like me.). the kind of fan that will sport a red sox shirt one day and a mariners shirt the next depending on which athlete he is currently dreaming about at night (like me.). the kind of fan that adopts dwayne wade and the heat so they don't have to root for the mavericks (like me.). the kind of fan that falls in love with peyton only after he's gone from really good to hall-of-famer because the falcons kind of suck (like me.). i am "that guy". i know this. i might as well own it, right?

maybe that's my own way of putting sports into their proper perspective. jumping from team to team. bandwagon to bandwagon. could i live without sports? i wouldn't want to, but i probably could. and so, until the alabama high school athletic association proclaims every day a "day of worship" and bans all sports completely, i will choose this, my new and enlightened path. the braves and alabama football and alabama basketball and the falcons will still be my favorite teams, but i will claim my right as a fairweather fan to hop on any bandwagon, big or small, of my choosing at any time.

their are four things that i hope my legacy in life does not judge me as fairweather: a husband, father, christian and friend. after that, all bets are off.

as for sports?

let's go suns!!!