I am a fan. I love my team. I love my team because I love my sport –wrestling– which is the greatest sport in the world because it’s one of the most pure forms of competition ever created, dating back many centuries. Just as there are no balls/nets/bats or other objects exterior to the human body needed to wrestle, there are no teammates who can compete on your behalf. “No one to blame it on but yourself!” as they say. The glory of an accessory-free, single-champion-sport has taught me a sense of rugged individualism, a Randian belief that there are no structural forces that limit my success or anyone else’s other than the will to succeed alone. In this way I apply the lessons I learned from a sport –an activity with simulated boundaries needed for participation– into the boundless world of everyday life. In my mind, they become one and the same. I think to myself: Winners find a way to win, losers find a way to lose in both wrestling and life. This comforts me because it allows me to take full ownership of my own relatively comfortable life. No handouts here.
There are some minor problems with this way of thinking, I’ve found. Nothing that can’t be explained. The first issue is that the same 5 teams have won basically every championship in college wrestling since I’ve been alive. Luckily I’m a fan of one of those 5 teams so I’m sympathetic to their permanent success. The fact is, those 5 teams simply work harder than everyone else– just as a CEO works 246x harder than their average employee relative to their respective salaries. Wrestling and the world are one and the same, remember? My idea of wrestling as a pure meritocracy isn’t challenged by the fact that every season is a foregone conclusion because I view that conclusion to be justified by meritocracy. It’s kind of circular thinking, I know, but like they say, “Might is right!”
The other problem is a little deeper, more personal. You see, I was once a wrestler myself. I know I have a beer gut now but I was actually pretty good back then– district champ! I was good, but not great. Certainly not as great as the guys who compete for my favorite team. And here lies the problem: How can I be both a fan of a champion team –thanked on the podium for my support and privately celebrated as a booster– while never being a champion myself? Have the Gods of meritocracy frowned on me? Did I not work hard enough as an athlete? If wrestling is life and my life as a wrestler was average, am I merely average at life? Or worse? These are hard questions, but luckily I have an answer:
Fandom is a competition, and I am the #1 fan. I read all the articles. I follow all the social media accounts. I have subscriptions to watch all I can. But fandom isn’t just about absorbing or even enjoying wrestling, it’s also the ability to project it. For this, I have my trusty message boards. These are the digital battlefields where fandom is won, where hot takes are forged in steel, and where devotional supremacy is established through the ability to recite and predict every detail of my team’s upcoming season. But the only way to truly become a champion is to have a worthy adversary and for that reason I promise you this: I will never stop posting, just as I hope you never stop posting back. Because when competition is at its best there’s only one guaranteed outcome: it’s the fans who win.
There are some minor problems with this way of thinking, I’ve found. Nothing that can’t be explained. The first issue is that the same 5 teams have won basically every championship in college wrestling since I’ve been alive. Luckily I’m a fan of one of those 5 teams so I’m sympathetic to their permanent success. The fact is, those 5 teams simply work harder than everyone else– just as a CEO works 246x harder than their average employee relative to their respective salaries. Wrestling and the world are one and the same, remember? My idea of wrestling as a pure meritocracy isn’t challenged by the fact that every season is a foregone conclusion because I view that conclusion to be justified by meritocracy. It’s kind of circular thinking, I know, but like they say, “Might is right!”
The other problem is a little deeper, more personal. You see, I was once a wrestler myself. I know I have a beer gut now but I was actually pretty good back then– district champ! I was good, but not great. Certainly not as great as the guys who compete for my favorite team. And here lies the problem: How can I be both a fan of a champion team –thanked on the podium for my support and privately celebrated as a booster– while never being a champion myself? Have the Gods of meritocracy frowned on me? Did I not work hard enough as an athlete? If wrestling is life and my life as a wrestler was average, am I merely average at life? Or worse? These are hard questions, but luckily I have an answer:
Fandom is a competition, and I am the #1 fan. I read all the articles. I follow all the social media accounts. I have subscriptions to watch all I can. But fandom isn’t just about absorbing or even enjoying wrestling, it’s also the ability to project it. For this, I have my trusty message boards. These are the digital battlefields where fandom is won, where hot takes are forged in steel, and where devotional supremacy is established through the ability to recite and predict every detail of my team’s upcoming season. But the only way to truly become a champion is to have a worthy adversary and for that reason I promise you this: I will never stop posting, just as I hope you never stop posting back. Because when competition is at its best there’s only one guaranteed outcome: it’s the fans who win.
