Attribution: Richard Hurd from Leland, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes, after hearing of a recent Badger football loss, that being a sports fan has evolutionary identity with well-fed human predecessors sitting up on the safe limbs while watching the meaningless machinations of young wildebeests, zebras and lemmings down below.
That was not part of the text back in April, 1993 when the keeper did a cover piece about sports fans for the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, in which he made the case for sports fans being “losers, “unhealthy, “societal liabilities and “crazy” by their own admission.
Researching the article required the keeper to spend an entire sports season watching the fans watch the likes of Michal Jordan, the Bears and a Notre Dame football game in a raging blizzard. His research also included info on the English soccer fan who sucked out and bit off a policeman’s eye in a fit of sports fan activity.
The article gained an honorable mention in national sports writing competition for that year and cemented the keeper’s Chicago identity as suspect in many quarters. It also, of course, laid the foundation for his usual lifestyle when, instead of being a sports fan and sitting on his fanny with Phyllis watching young people play games, the keeper heeded a much higher calling and went trout fishing. Phyllis most often stayed home and read yet another book.
Go Badgers!
Photo by Bill Stokes