The Rambling Writer Confesses: Not a Team Fan
After the frenzy of the Seahawks Super Bowl win, I ponder the proliferation of “team” identification for everything from rabid sports fans to polarizing politics. And now (sigh) yet another horrific war against the other “team.”
(“12” photo credit: OmegaMantis, Wikimedia Commons)
Sometimes it seems like everyone else in my native Washington State goes Seahawks football team crazy for a while every year, and of course this year it was amped up to the gills. You couldn’t drive or walk down a street without seeing flocks of “12” flags, signs, hats, and T-shirts, not to mention parade-level decorations on cars. Despite competing in track and gymnastics during school years, I’ve never felt that intense identification with a team, or that passionate need to win over, demolish, or trounce the opponents. Probably something missing in my DNA….
For those like me who don’t watch football (I know you exist), the “12” refers to the symbolic 12th member added to the 11 football players on the field – the loyal fan who supports the team. When I did a bit of research, I learned that the fans – the louder, the better – were considered essential to boosting the home team and distracting the visiting football teams. Apparently the new Seattle stadium was actually designed to amplify noise from the stands in order to startle the visiting players at crucial moments. Sounds hardly sporting.
Organized team sports such as football and soccer are often defended as safe ways to defuse aggression, but I wonder if they encourage it. Sometimes the energy goes beyond reason and safety. (And it’s definitely not safe for the players, especially kids in high school, too commonly suffering brain injuries.) As I was thinking about the issues, I happened upon a recent article in The New Yorker magazine (“Red Card, the curious power of soccer nationalism,” March 2, 2026) that describes the violence that erupts among hockey and soccer/football fans around the world:
“…’football is something like war.’ A touch hyperbolic, perhaps, but in contrast to many other sports – tennis, say, or swimming – soccer does tend to stir up primitive tribal instincts. The flag-waving, the face paint, the pugnacious songs, the banners, the bellicose taunts at the opponents, the arms flung out in unison foster a collective spirit that can turn violent at times. It also has a quasi-religious aspect.” The article goes on to describe an actual Central American war started by a soccer game, as well as examples of other sport-related political violence.
Like the majority in the U.S., I am horrified by the recent escalating violence here and abroad, and now an illegal war started by the corrupt administration. I am besieged by the news of political battles and by messages pleading for contributions to support “our team.” The “teams” are variously the Democrats or the Republicans or political action groups or individual candidates for office. To my thinking, the extreme partisanship that is tearing our country (and others) apart is further inflamed by these calls to join one “team” or the other and to revile members of the other team. Such over-heated rhetoric, the making of the Other into an enemy to be stomped into defeat, has led to more violence and war than anyone should be able to stomach. Is there any way we could all just play together peacefully?
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). It’s also a love letter to the stunning beauty of her native Pacific Northwest wild places. Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
3 thoughts on “The Rambling Writer Confesses: Not a Team Fan”
Nicholas Wade (I think) wrote a book “The Faith Instinct” in which he theorizes that since the beginning of humanity we have become hardwired to follow a charismatic preacher into battle to defend our “Faith”.
I do not believe he proved his premise. Instead he showed that we are hard wired to follow a charismatic leader to the death for no reason other than the need to follow _someone_ out of an overwhelming emotional response. Look at the tent revivals and cults.
Team sports have become cults whipping up fan support with the same preaching tools.
Rock stars aren’t far behind.
And look what it has done to schools. Sports stars slide through academics because the “team” needs them. They also become bullies who are excused because the “team” needs them.
The abuse of “team spirit” in many ways reverts the followers to paleolithic tribes marching out to defend territory, hunting rights, and honor (whatever that is).
Thanks, Phyl, for adding to the discussion. When I was teaching at Western Washington University, the administrators decided to cut the football program (probably due to cost rather than other considerations), but I was glad to see it go.
-Sara
In my area, every time there is a school funding crisis, all the school board has to do is threaten to cut football and suddenly the money appears. They claim that it is not about sports but gang prevention. A team gives the players a sense of family often missing at home.
Maybe.
It also encourages bullying and abuse of other students. And the kids who really need the sense of family to stay on the straight and narrow are often the ones excluded from the team because they aren’t team players or don’t have the money or grades to participate.