Sports fandom

[nevadanatural]

I was thinking about my history as a sports fan this morning and thought it might be interesting to see what the history of others is. I’ll start and organize it by sport.

Football

I didn’t start out watching college football. We got our first TV in 1956 and I was a little young for the Bud Wilkinson era but my dad watched the NFL after church on Sunday. My earliest memories are of players like YA Tittle of the NY Giants and Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts. My football fandom started with the St. Louis Cardinals. I started following them when they had Bill Triplett and Prentice Gautt in the backfield. My favorite Cardinal of all time is Larry Wilson and I’ll always remember watching him intercept a pass with casts on both hands.

While I would occasionally watch a college game on ABC, for you young folks there was only one televised game per week back then, they usually showed teams I didn’t care about. The first time I followed a season seriously was the 1969 Oklahoma Sooners when they went to the Bluebonnet Bowl and I was a freshman in college at Southwestern in Weatherford. When Switzer replaced Fairbanks and the Wishbone offense got rolling that’s when I really became a college football and Sooners fan. Some of my best football memories are watching Greg Pruitt and Joe Washington destroy defenses. I would watch a TU game occasionally but they weren’t on TV much. The first season where I followed TU football for an entire season was 1991 when they beat aTm and almost beat Miami.

Basketball

Again, I didn’t start out following the college game. I did watch the UCLA/Houston game in 1968 but mainly because it was an event and the Lou Alcindor vs Elvin Hays matchup was intriguing. If I watched basketball at all back then it would be Dr J or the Lakers. I liked Detroit when they had Laimbeer and company, Philly with Dr J and Moses Malone and of course I followed the Bulls with Jorden and Pippen. I never had a pro basketball club that I pulled for like I did in football and baseball.

I first started following TU basketball when Nolan was hired. He made such a splash and his teams were so much fun to watch I started attending the games I couldn’t get on TV. By the late 80s I was a season ticket holder, my seats were behind the baseline opposite the student section. TU basketball is still my #1 sport these 40 years later.

Baseball

Baseball was really my #1 sport for a long time. I remember the incredible road to the pennant for the 1964 Cardinals and I would lay if front of the TV with my baseball cards on Saturday afternoon and pull out the appropriate card when Willie Mays, Rocky Colavito or Mickey Mantle came to bat. I really started my team fandom with the 1967 Cardinals and remember listening to every game of the 1967 and 1968 seasons on the radio because by then the only televised games were the Yankees until the World Series. I stopped watching baseball after the players strike in the early 90s and I stopped watching pro football a few years later.

Soccer

I started following soccer when the Roughnecks franchise started up. I think my family attended every home game throughout their NASL existence. Watching the Roughnecks lead me to following the national team which lead to me watching the Bundesliga on TV. I still watch the men’s and women’s national teams when I can and catch Premier League games when there’s no football or basketball competition. I watched Watford beat Liverpool this weekend and break their undefeated streak. I can’t say I’m a soccer fan at this point because other than Olympics and World Cup I don’t go out of my way to catch a game.

Anyone else care to reminisce?

 

[TU_BLA]

Football: I didn't even realize college football was a thing until the mid 80s because there was only 1 D1 team anywhere close and that was Boston College. No one cared until Flutie's Hail Mary vs. Miami. I was a Pats fan by default but during the early 80s kids always picked a 2nd team because they Pats were awful I chose to go with the Redskins and loved watching John Riggins plow through people. When Flutie did hit the hail mary, I started following more college football, but mostly Boston College. I hated OU though because I despised Bosworth and Switzer. I became a TU fan when I transferred to TU after my sophomore year at Boston U.

Basketball: Again, being in MA, a Celtics fan for life and it was a great time to be a Celtics fan. Start of the big 3 era, I was 10. And that's when NBA teams were tough and played tough. The 2 regular season Celtics/Lakers games were events. I didn't get into college basketball until 85/86 when Providence College made their run. Can still name the starting 5. It helped that the local CBS station showed all of PCs Big East games on local TV. Became a TU fan when I came to TU which happened to also be the year TU ended up on probation.

Baseball: SOX FAN. Heartbreaking and gut-wrenching for so very long. My Irish great-grandmother taught me how to properly curse and yell at them while watching games on TV. Baseball was my sport of choice, the one I could play best and excelled at. When all of the cable networks hit, I was a secondary Braves fan because all of their games were on TV. I could watch more Braves games in a season than I could Sox games simply because we got TBS with our cable package but not NESN. I don't have the patience to watch baseball in entire games anymore. I typically watch when the Sox are batting and then flip around and come back.

HOCKEY: This is where I'll differ from most. Bruins fan..and the big, bad Bruins of the late 70s and 80s. But I also pretty much knew that every season would end in the Adams Division finals to the Canadiens. On to Boston U where I was classmates with Keith Tkachuk and saw him play as part of a starting lineup of Shawn McEachern, Tony Amonte, Tkachuk, Peter Ahola, and Scott Lachance. All 5 had long careers in the NHL. I'm so old, Tkachuk's kids are now NHL stars in Calgary and Ottawa. Road tripped to St. Paul, MN for the Frozen Four to have our hearts ripped out in triple OT against Northern Michigan. Try driving for 24 hours straight after sitting through that.

Soccer: My only knowledge of soccer growing up is that all the green-horns would go to the empty lot across from where we played baseball. Most just got back from fishing trips (commercial fishing industry-I grew up in the city with the largest fishing port in the US). Jeans and giant belt buckles, shirts vs skins. I couldn't even tell you if we had youth soccer growing up. Started watching soccer after the US made the 1990 World Cup. Had no idea how big a deal it was. In 1994, in Boston, my friends and I watched the Ireland/Netherlands knock out game from an Irish pub. CRAZY atmosphere! Pretty much just an international match fan from that point up until about 5 years ago when NBC got the rights for Premiere League. I am now a full-on Liverpool fan! #YNWA

 

[nevadanatural]

Football: I didn't even realize college football was a thing until the mid 80s because there was only 1 D1 team anywhere close and that was Boston College. No one cared until Flutie's Hail Mary vs. Miami. I was a Pats fan by default but during the early 80s kids always picked a 2nd team because they Pats were awful I chose to go with the Redskins and loved watching John Riggins plow through people. When Flutie did hit the hail mary, I started following more college football, but mostly Boston College. I hated OU though because I despised Bosworth and Switzer. I became a TU fan when I transferred to TU after my sophomore year at Boston U.

Basketball: Again, being in MA, a Celtics fan for life and it was a great time to be a Celtics fan. Start of the big 3 era, I was 10. And that's when NBA teams were tough and played tough. The 2 regular season Celtics/Lakers games were events. I didn't get into college basketball until 85/86 when Providence College made their run. Can still name the starting 5. It helped that the local CBS station showed all of PCs Big East games on local TV. Became a TU fan when I came to TU which happened to also be the year TU ended up on probation.

Baseball: SOX FAN. Heartbreaking and gut-wrenching for so very long. My Irish great-grandmother taught me how to properly curse and yell at them while watching games on TV. Baseball was my sport of choice, the one I could play best and excelled at. When all of the cable networks hit, I was a secondary Braves fan because all of their games were on TV. I could watch more Braves games in a season than I could Sox games simply because we got TBS with our cable package but not NESN. I don't have the patience to watch baseball in entire games anymore. I typically watch when the Sox are batting and then flip around and come back.

HOCKEY: This is where I'll differ from most. Bruins fan..and the big, bad Bruins of the late 70s and 80s. But I also pretty much knew that every season would end in the Adams Division finals to the Canadiens. On to Boston U where I was classmates with Keith Tkachuk and saw him play as part of a starting lineup of Shawn McEachern, Tony Amonte, Tkachuk, Peter Ahola, and Scott Lachance. All 5 had long careers in the NHL. I'm so old, Tkachuk's kids are now NHL stars in Calgary and Ottawa. Road tripped to St. Paul, MN for the Frozen Four to have our hearts ripped out in triple OT against Northern Michigan. Try driving for 24 hours straight after sitting through that.

Soccer: My only knowledge of soccer growing up is that all the green-horns would go to the empty lot across from where we played baseball. Most just got back from fishing trips (commercial fishing industry-I grew up in the city with the largest fishing port in the US). Jeans and giant belt buckles, shirts vs skins. I couldn't even tell you if we had youth soccer growing up. Started watching soccer after the US made the 1990 World Cup. Had no idea how big a deal it was. In 1994, in Boston, my friends and I watched the Ireland/Netherlands knock out game from an Irish pub. CRAZY atmosphere! Pretty much just an international match fan from that point up until about 5 years ago when NBC got the rights for Premiere League. I am now a full-on Liverpool fan! #YNWA

A couple of comments. My son is also a Redskins fan for some reason. I never pulled for the Skins and how he became a fan while growing up in Tulsa is beyond me. He now lives in Northern Virginia and has Redskins season tickets.

You mentioned the ‘94 World Cup, I was in Orlando on a Disney vacation with my kids that year. I saw a ton of foreign soccer fans at Disney World. The Mexico fans were the friendliest and a simple “viva Mexico” would get you a crowd of happy fans. The Dutch seemed standoffish but they may just have a cultural reserve I’m unaware of. The Europeans in general and the Irish in particular seemed to have an aversion to showers. I don’t want to cast aspersions on any nationality so I’m going to assume they just had a busy schedule and weren’t used to the Florida heat.

 

[TU 1978]

Football: Grew up attending TU games with my father during the Dobbs glory years. Saw Jerry Rhome, Howard Tilley, Willy Townes, and others play during that time. Met and shook hands with Twilley. Didn't wash hand (pre COVID-19 days) for a long time. Suffered through the Vince Carrilot years. Got to see John Cooper coach, and Dave Rader and Steve Largent play. Since I went to high school and engineering school with Rader, I wanted to see him succeed at coaching TU. Also grew up watching the Dallas Cowboys (as they were usually featured prominently on Tulsa TV) with the era of Landry, Staubach and Pearson. Not bad.

Basketball: Grew up attending TU games with my family from the time that Joe Swank coached the team. Saw players like Willie Biles make a big impact. Attended TU during the downturn in the program (the Jim King years) where my girlfriend and I attended games at the Fairgrounds Pavilion. Diehard fans we were. And depressed with the state of the program by the time we left school. Of course, it was a joy to see Nolan kick start the program two years later. My father on his deathbed predicted Nolan would be successful and was excited that he'd been hired. Never a fan of NBA basketball, although I have followed games more closely when Paul Pressey, Steve Harris, Shaq Harrison and DaQuan Jeffries were playing.

Baseball: Attended TU baseball at the old Oiler Park during the Gene Shell glory years, including the World Series runner-up year. Also attended Tulsa Oilers games when they were a Cardinals farm team. And the Cardinals as well. Don't see too many college games these days, although we have attended Lamar games locally. And Houston Astros games as well. Time for another World Series in spite of Dusty Baker!

Hockey: Attended Tulsa Oilers hockey games during my time in Tulsa and while at TU, nickel beer nights were my favorite.