I know what you're thinking; "Bandwagoner!" You would be dead wrong.
I have been a Colts fan for ages, and even though I NOW live in Seattle, I have lived everywhere and been exposed to everything.
As the child of an Air Force parent moving was always the norm. It was never a surprise to hear that we would be moving, and it really is something that I just "got used to." So when I tell people that I have moved to a different state ten times in the first 16 years of my life, the number doesn't shock me at all. It has made me a very adaptable person, and given me an immense amount of confidence in talking to others and making friends out of strangers. The only true "negative" of that upbringing is being a sports fan.
My first love was hockey, and the Minnesota North Stars. We were stationed in Minnesota and the Stars were a constant talking point in school. A team that never was the greatest when I was a kid, but always the best part of winter. While I watched their games on our TV in the suburbs of Minneapolis, I resolved to learn to skate and play that amazing game. My brother and I each got our first pair of skates one winter, and we went to a frozen pond near our house to see if we could skate. Two pair of thick socks, several minutes tying and retying my skates to make sure they were tight, and I stepped onto the ice for the first time. I'll never forget that feeling. The cold on my face, the hesitation in my mind, the though of watching those NHL guys glide onto the ice... I knew I could do it, I'd seen it done a thousand times.
I put one foot onto the ice, pushed off the snow with the other, and I skated across the pond. I cut back and forth to get a feel for the ice beneath the blades, and I was hooked. With no lessons or help, I skated for hours. In one of the most amazing moments of my life, I found that I could naturally skate. Hockey has been a passion since that cold evening on a pond in White Bear Lake, MN. When the Stars announced their move to Texas I was devastated, and I had no idea what I would do.
The next month I got the greatest news of my young life. We were being transferred... To Dallas...
I can not believe that it was anything short of fate that put me in that city, back with my team. I will always be a Stars fan, even now that I am thousands of miles away. When they won the Stanley Cup in '99, I was screaming at the TV at the top of my lungs. 2000's SCF were a devastating shock... To this day I think that the Buffalo Sabers are a bunch of whiners, and I HATE the New Jersey Devils. (And Martin Brodeur, screw that guy...)
Once we were in Dallas I had to pick a football team. Did I keep watching the Vikings, did I adopt the Cowboys, or did I pick someone entirely different? Different was where I ended up.
My father lived in Baltimore and was a Colts fan. The team left the city the year I was born (while my parents were stationed in California). I had heard stories of the team growing up and kinda somehow fell into rooting for them on Sundays. It was easy to be a fan of another city's team, and one that I already had a little family support in loving. It was also easy because the teams middle of the road performance made anyone think twice about calling me a bandwagoner. :-) I might not have loved the Cowboys like everyone else in Dallas, but at least I wasn't simply rooting for an out of market team that was doing well.
Years later, after numerous ups and downs, we're in an "up" again. Peyton Manning looks to be one of the greatest people to ever play QB, the Colts receivers are looking good, Dallas Clark is the most underrated tight end in football, and we now have the defense we needed for so many years.
I guess that it's easy to see why the people in a city who's team went from a Superbowl appearance several years ago, to being (game ain't over yet, so I assume) 5-11 this year, might want to call me a bandwagoner. But if anyone needs to confirm it, I have a collection of hats (of all things) to prove my devotion. An "on-field" hat from every season for the past decade. My simply tribute to the team every year since 2000 (when I had a job for the first time so I could buy things like that), and the one thing that I will wear around town. I don't feel the need to have T-Shirts, Sweaters, Jerseys, and the like. A simple hat from the field, and I am fine.
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