What’s in a name?

What’s in a name? Apparently a lot. I am a sports fan, and I love my Seattle pro sports teams. But at the same time, I do not understand fans like myself or why we even put up with modern professional sports.

Every year I tune in and cheer on all my favorite sports teams. But every year the players that make up each team are often very different. I wonder how many players call the city the play for “home”? How many will be with the same team in a couple of years? They will either be traded or they will go somewhere else for more money.

The days of “franchise players” are behind us. What happened to the guy who plays his entire career with one team? Look at Shaquille O’Neal. He is considered a franchise player, someone you can build a team around, and yet he is on his third team. Even my own Seattle Supersonics had Gary Payton as their franchise player, now he is on his fourth team.

The only thing that seems to remain a constant with my favorite sports teams is their name and location. But as many heart broken fans in some cities know, even that can change. In fact the Seattle Sonics are currently in danger of this. They may join the ranks of teams like the New Orleans Jazz (Utah Jazz), the Minnesota Lakers (Los Angeles Lakers), and the Vancouver Grizzlies (Memphis Grizzlies). They will just become another team whose name doesn’t make any sense.

So at the beginning of each season I struggle to know who plays on my teams. But I do my best to learn and to root them on with same passion as always because they are my team. But really they are only “my team” because somebody told me they were. I’ve never understood people who live in one state their whole lives, but root for some other state’s team. “no home town loyalty” I’d tell them, but now I see it makes more sense since no players have home town loyalty.

All of this is why I do not understand fans like myself. So let me try to explain myself to myself. Yes I am bothered by the lack of loyalty and the money following that goes on, but I love my teams. If the Seattle Seahawks were to completely swap players with the Denver Broncos (my least favorite team), I would still root for the Seahawks all the same. Now if a Seahawk makes a mistake on the field, I might mumble something like “well that’s because he use to be a stupid Bronco.” But I would still cheer him on. There is something about the name “Seattle Seahawks” that makes them my team. When the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC championship last year, I and not afraid to admit, but I shed some tears. I have followed and rooted for the Seahawks my entire life. It is a kind of relationship that has been formed through all the good and bad times. Like all relationships, we struggle, we love, we get angry, we brag about them, and other times we are embarrassed. It is definitely a relationship that is more schizophrenic than the average relationship, but it is a relationship just the same. Boston Red Sox fans understand this better than anyone.

I totally understand why so many people prefer college sports and triple A baseball. I too have tried to get into college sports, but I think there is something about the way we were nurtured as kids. I have even tried to root for the Broncos now that I live in Colorado, but I can’t do it. I wonder, if the Sonics move to another city, will I still root for them or will I mourn the loss? Like relationships, I’ll probably just be jealous of the new city and say things like “they don’t deserve them.”

My mind is made up that pro sports are just another industry destroyed by corporate powers. My heart, however, still searches every year for the hard fought victories, for the stories of triumph and for the spirit that money and power can’t take away.