“Marry a Cleveland Browns fan. They’re the most loyal men in the world.”
My freshman year, this piece of advice was offered by one of the (overly) friendly workers in my dorm building’s dining hall. I’m not sure if she meant it as a joke -- the tone so often adopted by almost any non-Clevelander when discussing Cleveland sports -- or if she meant it sincerely, but I chose to believe the latter because of how deeply I agreed with her.
I would extend her statement, not just a Browns fan, but a Cleveland sports fan. You won’t meet any person more passionate. That is the simple truth of it. You won’t meet anyone more dedicated or loyal or capable of investing him or herself in something that matters to them.
I’m not saying they’re the only sports fans, or people, with passion, loyalty, or deep love for their city. Not by any means. But in Cleveland, we’ve got an underdog story. A long, long underdog story. The longest underdog story in professional sports. Rooting for Cleveland is like rooting for Duckie to get Andie at the end of "Pretty in Pink." And not a single other city could claim that their fans would stand by their teams this long without a championship. Chicago fans can throw a helluva parade with a Stanley Cup, but I don’t know that they’d throw one without it. Boston fans may give us a run, but the Patriots and Celtics aren’t exactly hard to root for. I watch Cleveland fans live and breath for their sports year after year, win or lose -- mostly lose. And I think there’s something to be said for their unfaltering dedication that just can’t be found anywhere else.
Everyone is quick to laugh when Cleveland gets close, fans get hopeful, and it ends in heartbreak. ESPN won’t just show clip after clip of game time mistakes, but they’ll go back 50 years and bring up old heartaches: The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot. They’ll beat that dead horse until a joke about the river catching on fire comes out of its stupid horse mouth. But the fans stay right where they are. Of the last five Browns seasons, only the most recent saw more than five wins, and that season deflated quickly after a 6-3 start. But not once, over the course of those losing seasons, did the Browns fall into the bottom five attendance rates. Though attendance rates aren’t that high with the Indians anymore, we were the first MLB team to sell out one entire season -- and then we sold out four more for 455 consecutive sold-out home games. With the Cavs’ loss in game six, last week, I was expecting to see a lot of hurt among my CLE friends, and a lot of bitterness. But I saw, overwhelmingly, pride in the team and hope for next season.
Maybe you won’t take Judy’s advice, and you’ll marry some fan who is able to smile on Sundays in the fall, or who will have baseball to watch in October. That’s completely understandable. But believe me when I tell you that you’ll never find anyone quite like a Cleveland fan.
