Growing up, my family was NFL-unitarian. We had strong beliefs as it pertained to college football, but on Sunday afternoons, we were pretty welcoming of all traditions. My dad would watch whatever was on without deciding that one team was better than another. Because it’s human nature, the teams with proximity to us took precedent, so we would elevate those, and when we were forced to choose each December, we qualified as a Bengal household. (It is my belief that we defaulted to Cincinnati allegiance because my grandfather was an avid fan of the Reds).
As an adult, I married into a similar football religiosity in that my husband cared deeply for the non-professional football games, but enjoyment of the NFL came through participation in a fantasy league. My kids ask when games are on, “who do we want to win?” and it changes from week to week. Because nothing unites like a common enemy, we sometimes say, “not the Patriots.”
But I have friends who love the pro football. They have jerseys and belief systems and they schedule their Sundays around such things. I like all my friends, but I have to tell you that I have a secret favorite: the Browns fans.
The Browns don’t win. Because afternoon football needs more than the game to make it interesting, one broadcast ran the stats on the loosingest team on the road. The Browns were second, behind the Lions. “Good heavens,” I thought. “The Browns can’t even win at loosing.”
The other pro teams in the CLE have redeemed their loosing years either through breeding talent like LeBron or by a major motion picture with Charlie Sheen that can be quoted ad nauseum. But the Browns have none of that, and they have to wear orange.
Yet the fans show up. They complain, they declare they should have found a new team decades ago, but they cannot let go. Why?
I call it hope.
Rob Bell defines hope as the belief that tomorrow will be different than today. (Despair, it’s contrasting belief, is the belief that the future will be the same as the past.) So those Browns fans tune in, not with optimism blinding them to the lack of particular talent; they’re depressingly aware of their deficits. But somehow, they believe that the deficits don’t define the team.
If I need someone to put me right again, I turn to my Browns fan friends because if they can believe that about a bunch of 300 pound strangers, they can believe it about me.
I don’t need more people who can be faithful when all is right; I need people who are comfortable and familiar when things don’t pan out the way we dreamed. I don’t need more friends who can win, and gloat, and make insta-perfect lives with the impeccable taste in draft choices; I need people in my life who live honestly in the everyday realities but with a sense of hope that can drown out the negativity. I need people who make the active effort to believe that the next day, the next game, the next season, will be different from today.
I cannot name who is first in the AFC or any of the other facts and letters that float about on a Sunday. I don’t have flags to wave or even a fantasy running back in which I can rest my hope. Instead, I’ll take the fans that defy the popular claim that if you’re not winning, you might as well quit. Nope, I’ll find a seat by those who keep showing up.