A Few Words On a Sore Subject
Posted by Brendan Jackson on Sep 18, 2009
I’d like to take sometime to talk to you all about a serious condition plaguing sports fans. It’s called Homerism. Did you know that Homerism is the leading cause or bar fights across America? You didn’t? That’s probably because I just made that up. But either way, it is not cool and I’ll tell you why.
I really think we should all band together as fans and make a concerted effort to end what Mike Felger calls “flaming Homer[ism].” I don’t always agree with Felger because of his tendency to go “doom and gloom” to easily but he is right- many sports fans are simply Homers.
If their team loses they blame officials or claim the other team got lucky. Indianapolis Colts fans claim Tom Brady sucks and now Cavs fans (and writers apparently) are completely writing off the Celtics.
It’s a fair point that the Celtics are older this season and there are a lot of question marks regarding the health and efficiency of guys like Garnett, Pierce, Allen, and Wallace. But read those names again. Any real sports fan can’t read those names and tell me that a team with that personnel can’t make a finals run.
Homerism has been around for as long as organized sports, but recently I found out it hit a little closer to home. I recently discovered that one of my dear friends, Dev, is unfortunately a total Homer. I don’t know if I was in denial but I never realized it until a few weeks ago.
A bunch of us were at his house watching the Oregon v. Boise State game because a) it was suppose to be a huge game; b) we couldn’t wait to finally watch college football; and c) Dev went to the University of Oregon.
Then the game happened and afterward I had never seen someone look more imposing than Jonathan Stewart in a Jonathan Stewart jersey. He was so angry he left the room with 20 seconds left and missed the entire post game melee. Which was a good thing considering the fact that leading up to this game all he talked about was how LaGarrette Blount was going to truck people all season. Little did he know he would only truck one person, Byron Hout.
When he found out and saw what happened he refused to blame Blount. I personally feel that there was blame on both sides but Hout’s coach was there in seconds reading him the riot act and sucker punching is never cool. Still, Dev went on and on about how the Hout deserved it
See? A homer. Although, I wasn’t completely convinced. I just thought maybe this was a momentary lapse in judgment now that Oregon had no chance to play in the BCS Championship. Then ESPNBoston launched and they didn’t include UMASS Football in their logo links at the top. You see, Dev went to both Oregon and UMASS. I have nothing against UMASS. In fact I love UMASS. I’ve partied there, I’ve been to basketball games, when I was little I bought a UMASS hat, pulled out the stitching of the ‘m’ and wore it around like I was the coolest kid in the world. Despite all this, there is no way I would suggest putting a link to UMASS football on ESPNBoston homepage. Aside from the obvious location issue, UMASS football is a I-AA team. The biggest football school in Boston, and my alma mater, is Boston College and it is really the the only relevant football school in Boston (I’m really sorry Northeastern fans but I was at that game and it was just no contest). Before you call that Homerism, I will say that for the most part BC is also an irrelevant football school with respect to the SEC and other more powerful conferences. BC gets national recognition for putting so many players in the NFL but not necessarily winning in college.
Finally I was convinced that my friend was a Homer and I could no longer rely on him for unbiased sports analysis. Then I thought about my own sports analysis and if it were possible that I may have some Homeristic tendencies. I mean everyone slips into some Homerism from time to time but was there something so blantantly Homerific from last Celtics season that could only be justified through being a Homer.
I found an example, which you can read after the jump.
Then I remembered Ray Allen’s elbow versus Andersen Varejao’s crotch. When I first saw this I thought three things, 1) I love Ray Allen; 2) I HATE Anderson Varejao; 3) maybe Ray was just getting up and happened to elbow Varejao by accident, besides Varejao sucks so he probably deserved it.
No.
While Varejao still sucks, there was no excuse for what Allen did and if you say otherwise, you’re a Homer plain and simple. Trust me on this one though, I hate Anderson Varejao and would hate him if he ever joined the Celtics. I welcome anyone to please call me out on this if he ever does come to the Celtics and you see me smiling.
Seriously, he flops, he annoys people on the court, he walks around like he’s a skill player and not an energy player, and did I mention he flops?? Also, has anyone noticed how Varejao tried to hold on to Ray’s arm with his legs? So weird.
I hate to bring up a dark part of last season, but I felt it was the only way to prove to you that I am going to make a concerted effort to end my own Homerish tendencies and I ask you to do the same (that goes for you too Cav and Faker trolls).
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