Would you call yourself ‘a fan’ or ‘an antagonist’?

“My favorite part of the game is the opportunity to play - Mike Singletary”. We all have had an equal number of opportunities in our lifetime. Some may appear when ‘we want them’, many of those would only appear to us ‘when deserve them’, but sooner or later we will get a chance to prove ourselves. Being an athlete this task is even harder, since you have a constant pressure of being watched, judged, and often criticized by many known personalities & mostly the people we don’t know, the fans aka well-wishers or commonly known as followers/supporters.

An athlete, always waits for the right moment with his full potential to grab that opportunity in-order to prove his/her worth to the people around & to the people who may or may not have heard the name or had a glance of their performances. Grabbing that opportunities will reveal its challenges where the responsibilities are relatively tough with an additional layer of a parameter we know as expectations.

Expectations not just from ourselves but expectations of others around you along with the ones who are in-directly connected to you, they might be your far off friends, relatives, governing body members, sponsors, family & friends, etc. The list gets bigger & bigger as we climb the ladder & with these layers of pressure are no-way getting lesser but being doubled because we have had a chance to prove our worth & the ‘fans’ are now connected with you. They are trying to live a life through your eyes and feel a sense of success through your achievements.

As far as I could remember from my early childhood days, I have always been a huge fan of Rahul Dravid along with several other personalities associated with various dimensions of sport. Huge, in the sense where Dravid’s passion & love for the game influenced me enough to choose cricket. For instance, if India had a match against some team & Rahul Dravid comes on to bat, I would do similar kind of gesture while walking towards the crease, taking the stance, playing those straight drives, cover drives & the defensive shots against the world-class bowlers.

If he scores a half-century or a century I would run around the house celebrating as if I had scored those runs & contributed to India’s win. I would eventually break something & get punished by my parents or my sister or the neighbors. But, that wasn’t going to stop me from doing the same thing for the next match. It still hasn’t!!!

The real test was to play the same shot on the weekends with my friends or in the nets the next day. If you improvise, you get punished or scolded by the coach for hitting the ball in the air “incident shared by Dravid in one of his talks with the fans & media”. It was not just the moments of joy & happiness which I enjoyed and celebrated. It is something when our team/athlete wins, we as fans tend to believe it’s their success too, bask in echoed glory (“we won”) and with defeats, they grieve equally (“we lost”). [Ashish D, 2008]

Sports fans feel connected for their reasons, which may or may not be valid for the person watching from the far end without knowing their part of the story. Having real fans, followers, well-wishers around gives an athlete a sense of accomplishment (not experienced the feeling yet but I read & heard the stories of legends first hand while talking to them & knowing them personally) and also reminds them about their responsibilities, why they are here & also what are they doing it for.

The statement is often used for players who have changed their behavior over the years as they have grown & learned while being able to successfully retain their No.1 spot. The bests example which comes to my mind is Roger Federer. The past which reveals the transformation of Roger Federer from an angry young man to “The Mighty Federer” (interesting article Sport24.co.za).

But I believe, this quote is not just for the coaches, the players & the people working around the sport but also applies to us – the fans or the followers or the well-wishers of the sport as well as the athletes. There have been many instances over the years in multiple sporting dimensions in different countries that fans have had a significant impact on the players (both in positive & negative terms). Be it April 30, 1993, when Monica Seles was stabbed on the court or the love Sudhir Choudhary has for Sachin Tendulkar or Late Charulatha Patel had for Indian Cricket during ICC CWC 2019.

All these instances have the involvement of extreme emotions they have for the sport & also for the athlete for their reasons (no one can question that), but we mustn’t forget or cross the invisible line b/w being a fan [Dwyer, LeCrom & Greenhalgh, 2016]. The invisible line is where things go sideways, and eventually, it happens if the athlete or sport we support does not perform to our expectations or decisions which may not have worked if that situation or were not in favor of the team we support.

As fans, we need our team to win every single time, no matter what the situation, condition, or the scenario is, isn’t it? But we often forget while being emotional that the opposition is also a team of individuals who will have the same amount of love, passion & respect for the game as our players do. They deserve to win, if they have played a better game than us at any given point of time, no matter whichever sporting dimensions we talk about.

It is also about the other side of the coin, where people like Gunter Parche: the man who stabbed Monica Seles so that the German-star Steffi Graf could reclaim the No.1 spot. We also have seen & heard of instances in football where people have started fighting while the games is in-play or have beaten fans/followers of other teams to show their support towards their favorite team as if they are going to war with the those who don’t follow the team they do.

There is another variety of fans as well, who behave as if they will not be harming the values & integrity of the game until they get the attention and a chance to feel comfortable. It’s then they start all the negative comments on the athletes who they might see if they are near the field-of-play. I have seen such a variety of fans who believe they are a better judge of the sport only because they are paying for the ticket & coming to the stadium to watch the “athletes play to entertain them”.

This happened on 19th January 2020, Bengaluru when India was playing Australia in 3rd ODI of the series which also happened to the decider one. People were uttering un-acceptable language & action towards both Indian Players as well as the Australian players. “Such variety of people” who got tickets for the match having connections with authority figures or they are part of some marketing campaign carried by the branding team.

Let me ask you a few direct questions here, and I say this with extreme exasperation for those who dis-respected the game I have always loved - the sport which taught us far better lessons. What kind or type of sports fan are you? [Carson D, 2013]

• Are you someone who is still “the used to be” type? - someone who doesn’t have high regard for current generation athletes? or
• Are you someone who supports “Karma”? - someone, who is moody based on how the player/team performs in that season?

But the real point I am trying to come at is,

• How dare we (the fans/supporters/followers) use absurd expressions for someone who has worked harder than anyone amongst sitting in the stands to be where they are right now?
• Who gave the fans/supporters/followers the liberty or the power for that?
• Who gave us (the fans/supporters/followers) the authority to disrespect the game/sport/team/athlete many of us have loved & respected?

Here is something I want everyone to do [who loves a sport/player/team or just follows it sometimes just like that]. Try and put yourself in the shoes of a player, a coach, an administrator & imagine, how it feels when something absurd is said about you or done with you (slangs, slogans, racists comments).  How would you feel & what would you do in that given moment? Of-course the 1st thing that comes to our mind is, they are sports celebrities & that is meant to happen sometimes – they know how to deal with it. This is what we are “used to” hearing from people who may or may not have done it.

Trust me it is not OK at all. If athletes have to obey the rules & regulations both on and off the field, we the fans/followers/lovers or well-wishers of the sport/team/athlete also have rules & regulations or as it may be called - The Code of Conduct. Fans have to obey these at any given instance on & off the field. We can start with profiling people associated with Sports.

The cycle of people’s association with a sport is a never-ending process, because a Super Fan of Cricket might just be a follower of football/hockey/volleyball, or a basketball/table-tennis enthusiast would be a keen fan of squash/rugby/badminton. It never really stops because as-and-when people keep following & show their love for different dimensions of sport across the world, this process tends to get them closer & closer toward becoming an integral part of the Global Sporting Community.

This profiling helps us in clarifying the Code of Conduct which applies to each of the profiles. The 'Code of Conduct for Fans' is in the name itself which is given by multiple stakeholders over generations in general - a Sports Fan" In my opinion, it is the key to being a loyal & authentic personality associated with activities irrelevant to the sport, team, or a player we support and follow.

Here are a couple of videos - which in my view can be a perfect example of being a true admirer of Sports to the best of our capabilities. I think & believe that we can learn from Late Charulatha Patel & Dorothea whisper, about who is a fan? and how should fans behave around & about an athlete or a team or a sport?

I like the way a referee would tell the players in the boxing ring before they start throwing punches at each other, and I would try to follow the similar kind of ritual while being a follower, an enthusiast, a fan or a super fan of the athlete/team/sports.

As well-wishers, fans, followers, or supporters of a sport/team or an athlete it is our responsibility to control the outcome so that we can enjoy each moment of the game with a similar kind of passion & love, and trying to follow this Code of Conduct (on & off the field) will help us be Super Fans every time, everyday & everywhere.

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