The Fan

Yesterday I went with a friend of mine to the Syracuse University football game. It was my first game since 1991, where I can’t say I had the best experience of my life. Not that anything bad happened, but I had no idea where the ball was because I couldn’t see it from where I was sitting. I just figured that was how it was always going to be, so I hadn’t been back. However, my friend Josh had a free ticket, and my wife is out of town, so I figured why not.

I have to say I had a good time. We had great seats, so I only lost the ball a few times. Syracuse won for the first time this year, which was shocking even though they beat a Division II team (that happened to be 0-3, and they barely beat them), and most of the fans enjoyed that, including me. One thing I’d forgotten, since it’s been awhile, is how all of us can get caught up in a group mentality, because I went into the game thinking I was just going to take in the surroundings to have something to talk about later on, and pretty quickly I found myself instantly reacting to plays and bad calls and the like. It was fun, though.

However, there was one fan in the crowd (I use that term lightly, as the stadium holds at least 50,000 for football, announced 34,000+, but was probably closer to 15,000 inside) who just couldn’t contain himself. He was loud and easily heard in the cavernous stadium. Wearing his Crocodile Dundee hat, he just couldn’t find anything to be happy about; I’m sure the beer helped fan the flames some. He started on the coach after the other team scored its first touchdown too easily. There was more piling on of the coach, then individual players. He took a couple of shots at the referees also, but that’s to be expected. At a couple of points during the game, he got up and tried to walk down towards the bench to voice his displeasure, and his friends grabbed him and pulled him back. My friend and I wondered if it was part of a planned act, because, miraculously, he never spilled or sloshed any of his beer. However, near the end of the game, when Syracuse needed a field goal to finally put the other team away, he got away from his friends and was standing directly behind the bench, waiting to unleash a tirade I’m sure if the kicker missed; he didn’t, thank goodness.

As I said, we wondered if the guy was out of control, but I’m not so sure. He was drinking a lot of beer, but I learned that he’s a season ticket holder, so obviously he knows there are some limits. He also never uttered a single curse word, and that was surprising to me because, in today’s world of lax language, if he’d really been out of control, nothing could have stopped him.

Or, maybe he was actually a good example of something I often say, that being that most people, when they say they’re losing control of themselves, are actually capable of being in control of bad behavior when it’s expected of them. For instance, if someone utters bad words as if it’s water, you know they’re not doing that where they work, or in front of their parents (most of the time anyway). In essence, they know when it’s not allowable, and even if they’re in the mode where they’d normally let go, they don’t.

I believe this is the difference between someone who does something because it’s convenient at the time, and someone who really does have a problem controlling their behaviors. You can tell smokers are addicted when they have to take a break every hour to get a few puffs, especially if they’re working in a no smoking environment. Addictions are a totally different thing than other control factors. Some people are addicted to anger, and when it manifests itself all the time, then they need help. For everyone else, though, they do it because they can, not because they should.

Control of yourself is a good thing to have. If you can’t control it, work on getting some kind of help. Remember, there’s always someone who cares.