How my love life led to a love of the Raiders for life
You know it’s the offseason when you take a page from James’ misspelled book and follow suit in sharing the story of your Oakland Raiders fandom. In all honesty, and don’t tell James that I even admitted this to you, but it isn’t a bad idea. I mean, it’s a conversation that many of us have had while huddled under a Raiders canopy in the Coliseum’s parking lot. The age old question, “so how did you become a Raiders fan?”
I currently live in San Diego but, as I’m sure a few of you already know especially if you’ve ever heard me refer to a certain beverage as a “pop,” I’m originally from Michigan. And yes, I did just pause in my typing to hold up my hand to point to exactly where on the mitten formed by my left hand that I’m from. So I often get the question, “then why aren’t you a Detroit Lions fan?” I’ll be honest with you though, it’s not really Thanksgiving for me until I see the Lions play and that will never change. It was a staple in our household when I was growing up, but I honestly didn’t start really following football until about 2000.
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I was dating a guy at the time…and yes, I’ll pause here so that you can all collectively groan and say, “UGH, it always comes down to a boy.”
Got it out of your systems? OK, let’s move on…
This boy was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Did you all just pause and groan again? Because I actually did as I typed that. And that statement right there, about him being a Steelers fan, tells you just why I am no longer with him. At any rate, big sports fan this Steelers guy and he told me that if I wasn’t into football, then I’d need to find a place to go from basically Thursday to Monday while he was glued to football. And I told him, “not only will I learn football, but I will do it better than you do.”
From that, you can tell that I am definitely NOT the type of girl to just fall into a team because of a boy. So I had a big decision to make. Though I grew up in MI, I actually graduated from high school in California so I decided to go with a California team being that the Lions hadn’t been good since roughly 1996. In 2000, the best CA team was of course the Oakland Raiders and when I went to the boy to tell him that I was now a Raiders fan, it was his turn to groan. Naturally, as a Steelers fan, there’s a strong dislike for the Raiders. He was pretty irritable about the fact that I’d hand selected one of his most hated rivals, and, in not so many words, I told him, “tough nuggets.”
That season, it was a rarity for the Raiders to lose and, I didn’t realize it then, but I was hooked. I remember going to Waldo’s Tavern on campus to watch that Super Bowl and I didn’t even have any Raiders gear yet. I was rocking a black and silver Batman t-shirt that I had. The disappointment that day really ran deep for me and that was when I knew that I was in love. I’ve been following the Raiders ever since and have never looked back.
I fell even deeper for the team when I started writing about the Raiders and got up close and personal with Raider Nation. The thing that I absolutely love about sports is its ability to unite complete strangers and give them that common ground to build upon and there is no greater example of that than Raider Nation. Never have I been welcomed with open arms by so many strangers and that quality of Raider Nation really endeared me to the team even more.
And that is how the Raiders became such a huge part of my life.
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