When I have some time — hopefully tomorrow — I’ll have my definitive Ben Howland-Pitt post up. It will be the usual mix of history and my own views on things. And yes, lots of links. The UCLA fans who are stopping by, will hopefully gain some context for the feelings towards Howland.
On the West Coast a UCLA student from Pittsburgh finally resolves his identity crisis.
Many would call it a futile attempt. How can I abandon a decade of Pitt fandom? Could I possibly lock myself in my room, here at UCLA, and root against the Bruins? Won’t I see some silver lining regardless of the outcome?
The doubters are wrong. After a moment of deliberation I came to an easy decision.
It’s UCLA: I am 100 percent behind the Bruins.
My memories of Pitt basketball are just that, memories. The love I have for the Bruins today easily overwhelms my history as a Panther supporter.
Now that I’ve committed, I’m desperate for a UCLA victory.
Good. UCLA is your school. They are your team. There should be no doubt. A little overwrought and angsty about it, but getting the angst out of the system is part of college.
I grew up in a Penn State house. Both parents. I was dressed in PSU gear as a child (any photographic evidence believed to be accidentally destroyed a couple years ago). Went to some games. Probably cheered for them, though I don’t recall. Doesn’t matter. The minute I chose to attend Pitt, I had my team and my school.
I grew up initially a Pitt fan, then in 3rd grade I had a much older sister that went off to Penn State.
After a few years of confusion about who to root for (and after getting yelled at by my sister for sending a picture to her at State College of me dressed as a Pitt football player for 4th grade Halloween), I decided to go with Pitt 100% as a preteen.
It didn’t hurt that I spent a lot of my high school years kickin it in Oakland trying in vain to pick up college chicks haha.
In the end, my Dad and I wound up Pitt fans, and my sister and Mom wound up Penn State fans.
BUT, to complicate matters, I moved away and went to college at UNC. Now one might think “Hmmm… Tahheels B-ball or Pitt B-ball? Easy choice there!” But for whatever reason, even though I loved the school and the town, I could never bring myself to root for the teams at UNC.
Finally, I dropped out at Carolina and moved to Tampa to finish my degree at South Florida. This happened right after they entered the Big East… which incidentally is Pitt’s conference.
So even though I love the school (not so much the city of Tampa, which I really don’t care for that much) I still found myself using my student ID in November to get in free to the Pitt v. USF game dressed in Pitt gear. And I sat there and watched my boys get blasted by the USF Bulls.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that UCLA kid can suck nuts. Home (in this case Pittsburgh) ALWAYS comes first. Whatever town you find yourself getting educated in for four years comes second.
Granted, the school I go to now (Northeastern University) is never really a threat to Pitt in much of anything, and so I do root for them to do well. But having grown up in a city whose sports teams I support until the day I die, there’s no changing teams based purely on four-year committment to a school.
I realize that college is a huge part of most people’s lives, but in my opinion it’s quite frankly a cop-out to change allegiances like that, especially if the school you attend just so happens to have a superior program.
I know I sound anal, but loyalty is a pretty big thing with me, particularly when it comes to sports.
I mean, if I didn’t turn my back on Pitt when I had a chance to root for the effing TARHEELS, that kid didn’t have to kick them to the curb for UCLA.
Anyway, I really hope Pitt sticks it to ucla and Howland
I root for Pitt.
These UCLA morons are just Bandwagon fans. Ignore them. If they lived closer to Florida, or OSU, or UNC, they’d be on that wagon. No matter where they’re from or where they went to college. It’s pathetic.
Choosing what college to attend is a very complicated and life-altering decision. It’s not one that should be taken lightly, so a lot of times people aren’t able to/choose not to attend the school with the sports teams they grew up cheering for, for many different reasons. I can’t fault people for still showing their colors just because they’re on a different campus. In fact, it should be lauded. I still proudly flaunt my Pitt gear even though I go to a D1 school in Boston, and I don’t own a single piece of Northeastern apparel that I didn’t get for free, and I sort of feel it should be the same for anyone who grew up on a certain team.
On the other hand, many people don’t follow college sports at all until they get to college, mainly because they didn’t really have a local D1 team growing up. They then become lifelong supporters of the school they end up attending, which is also fine in my book.
What is annoying to me, however, is when people go to a school, and all of a sudden decide they like that school’s sports teams solely because they’re good, like it appears Mr. UCLA here has done. Or else it’s solely because they’re following the herd. Either way, I think it’s weak, and I see it all the time living in Boston. People from all over the country who became “Red Sox fans” only because they’re better than the team where they came from.
Just one of my pet peeves, I’ll try to keep the ranting to a minimum from now on…we’re all on the same side here 🙂
“I hope I made the right choice.”
It’s not a choice, and it’s certainly not a choice that should be predicated on whether the teams win or not. That’s NOT what being a sports fan is all about.
You don’t choose where you were born. Hell, you don’t choose where the people three generations ago in your family emigrated from, and people take absurd amounts of pride in their “nationality.” Sports are such community-tied things, I feel like if you like sports at all, where you were born automatically ties you to those teams.
I’m also capable of choosing my team and my school. I don’t see why geography has to matter. It can help — obviously. But when you commit to a school, just like what we expect from the players who sign a LOI and take the scholarship, there should be some expectation of loyalty to the school.
That’s why I had no problem with the kid going with UCLA. It’s his school.
I (and, I’m assuming, pretty much everyone who reads this site) am extremely glad you went with your college ties rather than the ones you had growing up.
But I personally would never ditch the teams I spent the greater portion of 18 years supporting for the teams in a city or school where I spend only a few short years.
I grew up in Philly. So aside from transitory interest in my parents’ alma maters — Temple ball specifically, Penn as an afterthought — NCAA sports didn’t touch pro football, basketball, baseball etc.
Last, I loathe everything Villanova despite practically growing up on the campus. So the path one follows to fandom is highly variable and IMO hardly worth the effort (or emotion) vested in argument.
link to sportsline.com