While Race with Purpose is about helping adults to achieve their endurance sport and community impact personal bests, we have a pretty active group of college alumni that feel strongly about, and support their college football teams. It is, after all, College Football Season and there is no greater sports season than college football season. We have representatives from Penn State (Kitteny Lions), The Ohio State University (Bucknuts), UCLA (Teddy Bears), Georgia Tech (They have really cute coeds so I’ll keep my mouth shut), Notre Dame (cheaters) and many others including my own alma mater The University of Southern California Trojans who are currently ranked number one in the nation. Oh, did I mention that they beat The Ohio State University Bucknuts last night? CindyJo is nashing her teeth right now, and that’s just because she hates we USC boys, having nothing to do with the hapless Bucknuts.
So while the weather begins to get cooler, tempers around this sport begin to get a little hotter as we head towards our collective fall marathons and the BCS championship. Integrity and accountability are two foundational characteristics of a Race with Purpose athlete. It is with this in mind that issues, questions and debates have arisen over when can someone affiliate with a specific college football team. This came up most recently when one of our own RwP coaches, Coach Joshquatch, a Columbia University graduate forsake his alma mater and ditched his own Columbia University Lions to affiliate with Chase Daniels and the Missouri Tigers. The Speedy Sasquatch has no affiliation what-so-ever with Missouri University. His position, you should know, is an upgrade from the hairy beast’s normal behavioral flaw of rooting for whomever he feels like from week to week and still calling himself a fan. Hogwash! As stated in the ESPN Fan Rules:
“Nobody is a fan of college football in general, not even Lee Corso.”
To clarify this disturbing issue, we at Race with Purpose have done two things. First we do not acknowledge The Speedy Sasquatch’s affiliation with the Missouri Tigers and find his personal attraction to Chase Daniels a bit disturbing – not that there’s anything wrong with that. And secondly, we have devised on our own the College Football Fan Laws. Only later did we find ESPN fans had been through their own predicament and approached their solution in much the same way. Therefore without any more formal ado, The Race with Purpose College Football Fan Laws.
You may affiliate with, and therefore support, root, go crazy for, wear face paint of, do touchdown pushups in the stands (or in your living room or local bar) after, and heckle the opponents of a specific college football team, only if you meet one or more of the following criteria:
- You did your undergrad work at that school
- You live in that city
- You did your graduate work at that school
- You have a sibling that goes to that school
- You grew up with a family that met the criteria of 1-4
- Before opportunities arose through conditions 1-4, you had a formative experience watching or following that school
- You had a spouse, girl/boy-friend, Friend(s) with Benefits, or hooked up with someone on Spring Break that went to that school and at some point wore the football jersey of that school
Anything else is considered to be fair weathered and disingenuous at best, and sleazy at worst and is expressly forbidden under Fan Laws.
Agree, disagree? Add your recommendations for additional Fan Laws below in the comment section.
Oh and we categorically reject the “Our team sucks this year” excuse. I had to go through my entire undergraduate and graduate experience at USC without ever beating UCLA or Notre Dame. How do you think I felt that our basketball team had a better record than our football team against those schools? I have no sympathy for that lame-ass excuse. Bottom line, Race with Purpose team members stand by their teammates during the good times and the bad times, and this applies to their allegiance to their college football teams as well.
For a list of over 83 other ESPN Fan Rules (obviously not as strong as RwP Fan Laws), check out http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=rules/070905
