How did you become a fan of your favorite team(s)? (10 Viewers)

[Kanil]

How dare you! The last 42 years of Raiders fandom has been too traumatic to discuss. Bottle it up inside and let it slowly kill me. That’s the only play left.

I tried becoming a Raider's fan but the application had a mandatory spot for my parole officer to fill out, and since I didn't have a PO, instantly denied.

 

[Gally]

How dare you! The last 42 years of Raiders fandom has been too traumatic to discuss. Bottle it up inside and let it slowly kill me. That’s the only play left.

I tried becoming a Raider's fan but the application had a mandatory spot for my parole officer to fill out, and since I didn't have a PO, instantly denied.

Sounds about right...haha

 

[General Malaise]

Mostly boring with one interesting one:

Grew up in Buffalo, so Bills and Sabres

Went to Penn State, so the Nittany Lions

Travel soccer team growing up was the Arsenal, so root for them.

The UNC basketball fandom started in HS. I have a brother a year younger than me and we were pretty competitve. My freshman year, his 8th grade year, our Varsity High team played against a team from downtown Buffalo so we went to watch the game. The Buffalo team crushed us and one player was really good. My brother said "I'm going to find out where that guy is going to college and start rooting for them". We saw in the paper the next day (yes, I'm old) that he was going to Duke. So my brother started rooting for Duke and since I am a good brother, I started rooting for UNC. We had tons of fun through HS, college and post college going back and forth during those awesome rivalry games.

Who was the player that went to Duke?

 

[bp1]

Mostly boring with one interesting one:

Grew up in Buffalo, so Bills and Sabres

Went to Penn State, so the Nittany Lions

Travel soccer team growing up was the Arsenal, so root for them.

The UNC basketball fandom started in HS. I have a brother a year younger than me and we were pretty competitve. My freshman year, his 8th grade year, our Varsity High team played against a team from downtown Buffalo so we went to watch the game. The Buffalo team crushed us and one player was really good. My brother said "I'm going to find out where that guy is going to college and start rooting for them". We saw in the paper the next day (yes, I'm old) that he was going to Duke. So my brother started rooting for Duke and since I am a good brother, I started rooting for UNC. We had tons of fun through HS, college and post college going back and forth during those awesome rivalry games.

Who was the player that went to Duke?

My guess is Christian Laettner. Game was at The Aud (old Sabres home) and ended with a fight against a city school (South Park).

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Mostly boring with one interesting one:

Grew up in Buffalo, so Bills and Sabres

Went to Penn State, so the Nittany Lions

Travel soccer team growing up was the Arsenal, so root for them.

The UNC basketball fandom started in HS. I have a brother a year younger than me and we were pretty competitve. My freshman year, his 8th grade year, our Varsity High team played against a team from downtown Buffalo so we went to watch the game. The Buffalo team crushed us and one player was really good. My brother said "I'm going to find out where that guy is going to college and start rooting for them". We saw in the paper the next day (yes, I'm old) that he was going to Duke. So my brother started rooting for Duke and since I am a good brother, I started rooting for UNC. We had tons of fun through HS, college and post college going back and forth during those awesome rivalry games.

Who was the player that went to Duke?

Laettner

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Mostly boring with one interesting one:

Grew up in Buffalo, so Bills and Sabres

Went to Penn State, so the Nittany Lions

Travel soccer team growing up was the Arsenal, so root for them.

The UNC basketball fandom started in HS. I have a brother a year younger than me and we were pretty competitve. My freshman year, his 8th grade year, our Varsity High team played against a team from downtown Buffalo so we went to watch the game. The Buffalo team crushed us and one player was really good. My brother said "I'm going to find out where that guy is going to college and start rooting for them". We saw in the paper the next day (yes, I'm old) that he was going to Duke. So my brother started rooting for Duke and since I am a good brother, I started rooting for UNC. We had tons of fun through HS, college and post college going back and forth during those awesome rivalry games.

Who was the player that went to Duke?

My guess is Christian Laettner. Game was at The Aud (old Sabres home) and ended with a fight against a city school (South Park).

Funny followup: a number of years later we were telling our Dad about the story of how we started rooting for the rivals, as he didn't remember.
He laughed and said he had a very similar experience. Growing up in Rochester, NY, he went down to NYC with a busload of fellow students when his HS team played a tournament in the City. They played a team from Power Memorial High and were dominated by a kid named Lew Alcindor. So he started following Lew as he went to UCLA and beyond.