An Important Announcement Regarding Sports Allegiances

As Anna and I ran side-by-side at the gym Sunday, the television was tuned the women's final four game between Michigan State and Tennessee. As the Spartans started coming back, I began rooting for them, pumping my fist at every defensive stop and big basket. When we were done running, Anna turned to me and said, "You're rooting for Michigan State, isn't that like rooting for the Yankees?"

I suppose it might be, given that I naturally gravitated toward U of M while growing up in Detroit. I rooted for the Fab Five and for Tom Brady. But I did not attend either school, and have no allegiances there.

"No," I explained and then proceeded to tell her my hierarchy of sports support. When watching a game between teams with whom I have no clear rooting interest, I will always cheer on the team from the industrial Midwest. After that comes the the northeast and then the far west. The come New Mexico and Colorado teams. After that I take the rest of the west region, followed by the south, then Florida, and then teams from Texas. If two Texas teams are playing, my support goes to the one based closest to Austin. I never, under any circumstances, will root for Baylor to win.

There are some special clauses in here. I root against Notre Dame unless it's playing a team from the south. I root, inexplicably, for the University of Utah. And as for the Yankees, I found myself feeling bad for Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera at the end of the last season, when New York pulled it's choke for the ages. I think, as it turns out, that if the Tigers are not going the win the American League, I want the Yankees or Red Sox to do it. Even living out west, I couldn't get excited about the 2002 Series between San Francisco and Anaheim. I love the shots of fans who take the game way too seriously. I could be happy, I think, to watch the Yankees lose the World Series every year.