Congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts. The spotlight of the world is square on the city I live in, and that is pretty cool. I’ve had this blog brewing for probably 17 years…when I first really became a diehard fan. That team was the Chicago Cubs and I was 8 years old. I should note that I was a fan prior to being 8, but diehard status was achieved at 8, and cemented by my first Cubs Convention when I was 10. Introducing the Cubs to an innocent, vulnerable, kid is like a parent pushing their young child into a staring role on a TV show…you’re in for a life of sheer pain and humiliation. I can’t blame this one on my parents though. I found the Cubs on my own.

Anyway. The victory in the Super Bowl is something Colts fans should cherish. It’s not something that happens everyday. I have gone on more than a few rants on whether any of my sports teams will ever win a championship. Truth is, there is a real legit chance they wont. The aforementioned Cubs haven’t won a World Series in 99 years (you can thank Fred Merkle for that one ). Think I’m being a little melodramatic?” Think about the people born in 1909 that have long since left us that just KNEW they would live to see the Cubs win at least 1 World Series. You can understand why I may not be entirely optimistic.

As you all know, I suffer through every game of every single season. And not just for the Cubs, but also for my other two passions: IU (basketball AND football), and the Browns. There are times when they have come close, as the 2002 IU National Championship game and the 2003 National League Championship Series (wipes tear from face) are two of the more recent teams that narrowly missed championships. But none of my teams have made it to the top while I was a fan of them. You can imagine, then, my frustration of seeing what most people know as “fair-weather” fans jump on this Colts bandwagon in the last few weeks (especially in the last week) and celebrate like they’ve waited their whole lives for this moment.

But it’s not like that. I don’t mind at all. Despite this blog, I’m not a fan snob. The reason? It’s simply because you can act like you LOVE a team…but you can’t truly convince yourself of that unless its true. The old adage is you get out of something what you put into it. And I can’t think of another situation where that adage rings more true. I realized this last night when the game was over. Neither team was my team, but Jake, Bri, and Abe are Bears fans, so I wanted to see them happy. After the game, although I felt bad for them, I didn’t have any trouble sleeping. Jake was a different story…and I know what he went through…I know very well. Fair-weather fans don’t put much into it, and they’ll get their cheep buzz, but they truly don’t get much out of it. If they can live with themselves when they forget they have a team during a 4-12 record, then more power to them.

The spark that ignited my little firecracker of inspiration was something Jimmy “Mad Dog” Matis said just prior to the Colts arriving at the RCA Dome for their parade. Dog is a Colts pre-game personality and DJ for Q95 in Indy. He noted, “Its unbelievable here…there are probably around 40,000 people in the dome for this. That’s more than the Detroit Lions get for an actual game.” He actually repeated this clever little “factoid” twice more, to the next two people he interviewed. Now, I have no loyalty towards the Lions…but I respect the fans that go to their games…because they haven’t had anything to cheer about in years, but they show up (and then get ridiculed by a dude named Mad Dog). The funny thing is, I checked the validity of his comment. Turns out, Detroit has out drawn the Indianapolis Colts the last 6 years (and probably forever, my data only goes back 6 years). Detroit drew an average 3,500 more fans last year than the Colts. The Colts were in first place, and Detroit was in last place. To those who say the Dome is small, the Colts actually drew 94% of capacity. So it was a first place team, probably the best team in football and they couldn’t even sell out a “small” venue. To compare, the Browns drew 15,000 more fans than the Colts (per game), and were at 100.5% of capacity.

Dog didn’t know the attendance figures, he just knew the end of the season record…and it shouldn’t surprise me that he assumed they were directly related. To Colts fans, record and showing up have been directly related.

Now before you all get all po’d and start posting “I’ve been a fan since the day they sneaked over here blah blah blah.” Just remember: This is my blog. This isn’t sharing hour with Barney the freaking dinosaur in which people will actually pretend to be interested in your bs. You want to talk about living through the Gary Hogeboom years, then fine. But having short fingernails from the wearisome Tony Dungy era will get you no sympathy from me.

I was at a bar Saturday with both Colts and Bears fans (probably more Bears fans). Everybody wanted to talk about the big game, and they always asked which team would be getting my support. I had to be honest… neither really. I’m a Cleveland Browns fan, and I am damn proud of it. The reactions were telling. Almost all of the Colts fans I told laughed at me. Got a couple “Jeez man, they suck. Why?” Bears fans, however, painted a different picture, and were almost all the same. “That actually gives you a lot of credibility,” said a dude with a Thomas Jones jersey. And one guy just said, “respect.”

You know why? Because they recognize a fan when they see one. And actually, so did I. As I was leaving the bar I saw a guy in his early twenties with a 1993 Cleveland Browns Vinny Testaverde jersey. I started wondering at that moment, if the roles were reversed (Browns in the Super Bowl), would you ever see a Jim Harbaugh jersey in a Cleveland bar the night before the game. I’ll let you ponder that yourself. But after we bumped fists I could see in his eyes the mutual respect between two true fans…and this pleased me. Of course, he did think I was a pussy and less of a fan for not representing a Browns jersey myself.

But that didn’t bother me. I mean really, who the hell is he to say what a good fan is anyway?