The Top 20 Types Of Seattle Sports Fan: 1-10

Every city creates its own particular strains of fandom, and Seattle's isolation and erudition creates them weird.

The Hater

The Hater derives most of their enjoyment from the failure of players they root against though those players are nominally on the team they root for. This fan discredits anything positive and, following victory, invokes a mythical "contender" that would "crush" whatever Seattle team they are currently hating on. The Hater has an irrational obsession with popular and prestigious players and drinks deeply in their failure. When not commenting about players he/she hates, the Hater typically comments about players the team did not or could not have acquired, but should have.

Favorite word or phrase: "Overrated"

Mortal enemy: The Loyalist

Jersey: Deion Branch

Achilles' Heel: Success, both their own and others'.

Can be heard saying: "Aaron Curry is an overrated bust."

The Athlete

The Athlete gets the game like you never could and, if pressed, argues that anyone that disagrees with them is a "nerd." This fan couches moronic opinions in made-up stories from their glory days as a high school point guard / low-A relief pitcher / D2 safety. The Athlete roots for scrappy players without talent because the Athlete him/herself was once a scrappy player without talent. Other, typically more talented players, are a "disgrace."

Favorite word or phrase: "When I played..."

Mortal enemy: The Nerd

Jersey: Gary Payton

Achilles Heel: Roids or Obesity, depending

Can be heard saying: "Ichiro is a clubhouse cancer."

The Blowhard

The Blowhard patterns his/her thinking, speech and writing after sports talk radio. This fan believes an opinion is only as sound as the arrogance with which it is delivered. The Blowhard makes provably false statements and repeats them into a pseudo-reality, like: This team needs a big bat, you can't win with midget corners and Ichiro is bad for the clubhouse.

Favorite word or phrase: "End of story," "end of discussion," and gratuitous use of "period" before an actual period

Mortal enemy: The Realist

Jersey: Bret Boone

Achilles Heel: Facts

Can be heard saying: "This team needs some playmakers. Period."

The Nerd

The Nerd was wary of sports for years but seduced by Sabermetrics. This fan understands sports conceptually but is capable of surprising ignorance when it comes to specifics. Truly, the Nerd never did play sports, or only played sports for a third of a season before his/her Quiz Bowl schedule heated up, and overcompensates for this deficiency through snark and an attack-dog attitude towards mistakes and weakness of all kinds.

Favorite word or phrase: "What" "Really?" and other aggressively posed rhetorical questions

Mortal Enemy: The Athlete

Jersey: Franklin Gutierrez

Achilles Heel: Gym class

Can be heard saying: "That was a nice game-saving catch, I guess, but if his read off the bat was better, he wouldn't have had to dive."

The Loyalist

The Loyalist has an unhealthy need to refer to the team as "we" and takes wins and losses personally. That causes him/her to be beaming with pride after a win and full of righteous outrage after a loss, and capable of violence after either. This fans struggles to let go of past-their-prime players and believes in a impending career revival up to and often past retirement. The Loyalist has a paranoid hyper-awareness of "haters," and interprets rational criticism as "hate."

Favorite word or phrase: "Hater"

Mortal Enemy: The Hater

Jersey: Matt Hasselbeck

Achilles' Heel: Reality.

Can be heard saying: "All you haters are going to eat your words when Matt leads us to Super Bowl LII."

The Frasier

The Frasier is not particularly smart themselves but fetishizes that which seems smart, cultured or erudite. This fan is sort of the hipster of sports fandom. He/she devours junk statistics and belabored opinions and recites them back with an aplomb befitting a theater fop. The have a tight-assed appreciation of sport but show little actual enjoyment from great play or victory.

Favorite word or phrase: "I read on Pro Football Focus..."

Mortal enemy: The Maniac

Jersey: Ichiro

Achilles' Heel: BS

Can be heard saying: "I'm a little worried about King Felix and the Verducci Effect."

The Maniac

The Maniac throws themselves into fandom in a way that turns it into spectacle or performance art and in many ways renders the team itself irrelevant. This fan spends more time with face paint and wigs than he/she does knowing the players' names. He/she is happy and loves that fandom, but the team is but a prop for the attention he/she craves. Few admit it, but deep down he/she knows, he/she was the one to cause that false start.

Favorite word or phrase: "FUcYEAHmothFUKKKERRRS!!"

Mortal enemy: The Frasier

Jersey: Sea Monster #12

Achilles heel: The offseason.

Can be heard saying: "Let'sMAKESOMEMFING NOISE!"

The Superfan

The Superfan experienced some brain-warping moment within his/her life that afflicts him/her with a intense, curious and truly breathtaking passion for a sports team. This fan is the most beloved, good-natured and fun to be around fan but also secretly the most miserable. He/she envisions the team winning a championship as a life-defining moment and has turned the passive experience of being a fan into a kind of avocation. Capable of experiencing religious ecstasy in moments of great triumph, the Superfan also falls into a near-catatonic stupor after a particularly bad injury, trade, signing or loss.

Favorite word or phrase: "When the..."

Mortal Enemy: The Non-fan Fan

Jersey: Lofa Tatupu

Achilles Heel: Their own fandom.

Can be heard saying: "When the Seahawks win the Super Bowl, I am going to drink myself to death!"

The Conspiracy Theorist

The Conspiracy Theorist never overcame Testaverde's phantom touchdown and has repressed the memory of Super Bowl XL like a molestation victim represses Sundays with Father O'Toole. This fan sees every loss through a kaleidoscopic network of covert motives and compromised officials. He/she believes that Seattle, for whatever contrived reason, is plotted against and every victory just some elaborate build-up to ultimate defeat. The Conspiracy Theorist has given up sports twice, but couldn't find a more substantial use for time and so begrudgingly reverted.

Favorite word or phrase: "Figures"

Mortal Enemies: Closing all around them.

Jersey: That money funds Pakistani jihadists.

Achilles Heel: Victory.

Can be heard saying: "Maveron is a front to launder crack money for the Bilderberg Group."

The Non-fan Fan

The Non-fan Fan does not like sports but has a sweet ticket hookup through work or family. This fan attends an enviable number of games, but attends only towards the end of wooing a client, seducing a mate, impressing friends or talking loudly on their cell phone. For three hours. Whatever the score or game state, the Non-fan Fan just wants the game to be over so they can score some tail at Cowboys Inc.

Favorite word or phrase: "douchebag," which everyone is but them

Mortal enemy: The Superfan

Jersey: Game-worn Dan Wilson signed by the entire 1995 team

Achilles Heel: Date-rape laws.

Can be heard saying: "Nah, just one more inning and I'm outtie 5000."

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Comments

Under the "Non-fan Fan," a typo.

Whatever the score or game state, the Non-fan Fan just wants the game to be over so they can score some tale at Cowboys Inc.

This is awesome. Completely spot on. But it already feels like you identified them all. Who could be left for the second 10?

by cashless on Jul 19, 2010 4:42 PM PDT reply actions

Thanks. Fixed.

by John Morgan on Jul 19, 2010 4:55 PM PDT up reply actions

It's funny that you ask

It seemed indulgent to run over 10, but I had a lot of ideas and it was a lot of fun to put together, and so I just kept writing.

by John Morgan on Jul 19, 2010 5:12 PM PDT up reply actions

Oh, I can't wait to seem what you came up with.

I just can’t imagine what it was.

by cashless on Jul 19, 2010 6:00 PM PDT up reply actions

So let's call OURSELVES out, shall we?

I am probably a blowhard-loyalist athlete superfan who is seeking help to avoid conspiracy theories about XL, Brandon Roy & Rudy Gay’s double foul, the 1993 NBA Western Conference Finals and a few others through the years. Yeah, I better call my therapist again…

Fun list though… well done.

Bird Law in this country isn't governed by reason.

by Tyler Jorgensen on Jul 20, 2010 1:07 AM PDT reply actions

"Aaron Curry is an overrated bust"

Teeheee, who could that be.

I don’t know what kind of Seahawks fan you are, John, but you seem to be a Hater of Seahawks fandom ;)

(I kid, all in good fun)

by Thomas Beekers on Jul 20, 2010 6:45 AM PDT reply actions

I've been the Blowhard, the Conspiracy Theorist and the Frasier

and fear I am becoming dangerously close to being the Superfan.

by John Morgan on Jul 20, 2010 8:14 AM PDT up reply actions

Or: coming dangerously close to becoming...

I hate words.

by John Morgan on Jul 20, 2010 9:32 AM PDT up reply actions

This is brilliant.

I can’t wait for the next 10

by killacamkilla2 on Jul 20, 2010 10:12 AM PDT reply actions

Really? So I'm a Super-Nerdy Blowhard?

When the next ten are finished I’m sure I can count on finding a more suitable representation. If not I’ll… I’ll… I’ll probably just take it since I’m an admitted Fieldgulls addict… but I won’t be happy. At least Redhook brought back their Blonde. But is that what you really want Mr. Morgan? Are you prepared for the consequences of underestimating the power of the pen and literally driving a loyal reader to drink? How could you ignore the proven statistics regarding the relationship of alcohol to the proportionate increase of traffic to inappropriate websites coupled with the subsequent decrease to the inverse? Lets face facts, if you want to succeed at this level you’ve still got moves to make. You owe this city that much. Damnit, you owe me. Period. End of discussion.

by trippsixxes on Jul 20, 2010 11:19 AM PDT reply actions