Why Do We Root for Our Teams?

I had a lot of time to sit and think things over as I watched my Philadelphia Eagles get beat by those delightful New York Giants Sunday night, and I came to a couple of depressing conclusions. (Well, depressing to me, anyway.) I first noted that the Eagles can't win on national television, which is a trait shared by pretty much every team I've ever rooted for. But I won't ramble on about how my team is never able to prove themselves when the world is watching. I mean, they do prove themselves, but never by winning. Instead, they only manage to prove themselves by not losing in an embarrassing fashion. They definitely still lose, though.

What really struck me is that I caught myself thinking that the Eagles are never going to win the Super Bowl, and that I'm not quite sure why I keep doing this--why I bother rooting for them at all if I don't think they'll ever win. Which leads to an even bigger question: why do we root for the teams we root for, especially when it can be so hard on us?

Since I started contributing this blog, I've thought a lot about sports philosophy and what drives us as fans to select and root for and against the teams we do. Players come and go, and I'm sure only a select few of us out there might personally know a player on a given team. If you think about it, we're essentially rooting for uniforms with history and tradition behind them, and we're rooting against other uniforms that at one point or another disrespected our team. Is that all it is? And despite that, is it still worth it to put as much time and hope as we do into rooting for them?

Why do I keep pulling for the Eagles if it tortures me so? Why do I keep cheering on the Cardinals when I know the bullpen is going to blow it in the ninth and I'm just going to be angry in the end? Why do I keep watching Eagles games when I think it's pretty clear that the Eagles are never going to win a Super Bowl? Not in my lifetime, anyway. I saw them get there once, but of course there was a team from Boston on the other sideline, so we all know how that turned out.

But even though I've come to the grim conclusion that the Eagles will never go all the way, it won't stop me from watching them at least 16 times every year from now until I can't watch football anymore due to family, career, lack of television, or zombie apocalypse. Even though the Eagles probably won't make the playoffs this year, I'm still going to hold out hope that they get there. And no matter how bad they may end up doing next year, I'm still going to hold out hope that they get there that year, too.

However, the thing is, I don't have to root for them. I only started liking them all those years ago because my brother did. I have half a brain in my head--heck, there might even be three quarters of a brain in there if I'm lucky. As such, I can pick my own team to root for if I wanted to. And if I was smart, I'd turn to the Giants or the Tennessee Titans or some team that's actually good and latch on to them like grim death. It'd be easy--pick a good team, act like I've been rooting for them my whole life, and declare everything to be good and right in the world when they win the Super Bowl this year.

But unless you're one of those people who decided to start wearing a Red Sox cap after they won the World Series in 2004, it doesn't work that way, does it?

I probably don't know why you root for your teams, exactly, but I can certainly tell you why I root for mine. It's not about how popular they are, or who plays for them, or how good they are.

I picked my teams a long time ago, and there is a romance to committing myself to them. Sure, other teams will come and go that might suit my fancy, and I feel it's okay to root for them along the way. But they'll never have that same draw or mystique that my favorite teams have. There's a lot of pain and a lot of disappointment along the way. People have come along and asked me why I root for the teams I do instead of rooting for the sure winners. I shrug them off. It's hard--it really is. I ask myself a lot why I bother, as I did Sunday night when the Eagles lost.

But as I learned in 2006 when the Cardinals won the World Series, despite all the years you may have to wait and despite all the disappointment along the way, it's all worth it when it finally happens. When your team wins the championship, every loss, every tear you've shed and every wall you've punched in the name of your team is worth it. When you get to scream and jump up and down in your living room with your friends as your team does the exact same thing in the middle of the field, you'll realize there's not a feeling in the world quite like it, and that you may never get to experience it again, so you cherish it with everything you've got.

Oh yeah, it's worth it, all right.

Let's see...next week the Eagles play Cincinnati. Let's get to it.