Few things rile us up more than people are fans of loads of different teams, or who claim to be "huge" fans of some school or team but really can't back it up. Let's also put it out there that, yes, of course, you can root for whomever you damn well please. That's part of the fun of sports. And my six-year-old nephew changes who he roots for all the time. You can be just like him.
Some of the biggest sports front-running a-holes, though, can be found at the college level. Two big offenders are those hicks who "love" IU basketball even though they couldn't complete a semester there if their lives depended on it and those jackasses who "love" Notre Dame football (when they're good, anyway) because, as many of them say, "I'm Catholic." Well, in that case, you should love Boston College, too, you dope.
I suspect there's a lot of front-running for Ohio State in the heart of it all, and that was confirmed for me when I was able to snap this photo as the OSU-Ohio game was heading to halftime:
Alright, so we've got two tools cheering for.... well, not sure which team here. It was 7-6 Ohio leading as we went to halftime. And you'll see the two dolts here both have Ohio University shirts on -- and OSU hats. And the even worse part is the guy on the right has a shirt mocking OSU! And yet he's got a Bucks hat on? I don't get it.
I sent a note to Jason at Eleven Warriors about this and here was his response:
I know that 95% of all Ohio U students also cheer for Ohio State. Mainly b/c the school is only 90m outside of Columbus and also because the Bobcats have traditionally stunk -- even for MAC standards.
Front-running is always a problem whenever a team has sustained success. Columbus is a metro of about 2m people (about same size as Indy) and the Buckeyes are really all the town has (the NHL team, the Blue Jackets are terrible).
I would just like to point out that any d-bag still rocking hoop earrings is not welcome as a fan. No offense because I know the male earring thing just caught on really big in Indiana last year. ;)
Now, leaving aside his shot at Indiana (which, to me being from the East coast, it's funny to see midwesterners make fun of each other -- like watching a special olympics fight), you see that his explanation is that there isn't a lot to cheer for if you went to Ohio. Okay, fair enough, but that doesn't give the "right" as a fan to just cheer for whomever... or does it? I guess, again, people can do whatever they want. But can you at least choose one or the other for the given game that you're at? You just know these two buttmonkeys were cheering wildly when OSU pulled out the win, yet had Ohio won they would have been hollering about their loyalty to the Bobcats.
I remember Brady Quinn's sister wearing that half and half jersey when she had her loyalties divided by being Quinn's sister but also regularly mounting AJ Hawk. (To be fair, Brady probably was jealous.) So maybe these two gentlemen are gay parents and have a son on each squad.
That's probably it.