I can barely remember being a fan.
I’m not talking about a passive, casual follower of a team, whose ulcers were caused by politics and hot sauce, not close losses and lousy officiating. I mean a full-on gee-whiz believer, whose Mondays were seriously impacted by what he’d witnessed on Sunday afternoons.
I don’t know when exactly things changed, when the passion ebbed and I no longer felt the need to paint my face. But I do know why.
I started working for a living and observing closely the people I covered.
You don’t know much as a sports-media heathen. Certainly, never as much as you think you do. But you know enough, see enough, observe enough to change the way you look at the games and (some of) the people who play, coach and administrate them.
You can love sports without loving the folks who make them go.
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