In two previous homes, I insisted that my dens be carpeted in cardinal red to match the Stanford banner on the wall. On the first day that the DMV took orders for seven-character license plates, I stood in line to secure "IM4LSJU." After routinely commuting 900 miles per trip for 16 years to see most home football games, I rearranged my life to live within half an hour of Stanford Stadium. I have every Stanford Band recording made since 1954 and often listen while shaving each morning.
Fan or fanatic?
A fan, according to the American Heritage College Dictionary, is "an ardent devotee, an enthusiast." Fanatic is defined as "a person marked by an extreme unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause." The distinction, then, apparently rests on whether the enthusiasm is ardent or unreasoning.
Sometimes that boundary can be unclear. Consider the Brooklyn man executed for murder in Massachusetts on April 21, 1941. His last request was to know whether the Dodgers had beaten the Giants that day. Or the Denver resident who attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head after a Broncos' loss. His note said: "I can't stand their fumbling anymore." Or the Milwaukee woman who sat atop a 40-foot tower waiting for the Brewers to win seven games in a row. She quit the vigil only when she got pneumonia.
My own rooting style is somewhat more understated. I seldom go to games dressed in Stanford apparel. I wear my class ring only during Big Game week, a tradition I have followed for 40 years. I cheer a little more than most Stanford fans, but I feel self-conscious about it. Every year I vow not to berate the officials at basketball games -- a promise I generally break even as I remind myself that referees love the game as much as I do. I videotape televised home games that I'm attending, but never watch a replay of a loss except to review a crucial officiating call against us.
I no longer have many overt Stanford displays in my home. Just two pictures on the wall of my study. One is a photo of me and my daughter, Shelley, taken in Stanford Stadium on her 14th birthday in 1980. (We lost to Washington that day, 27-24, crushing our Rose Bowl hopes in a year when only five Pac-10 teams were eligible, but who remembers that?) The other is a panoramic view of the crowd at Big Game in 1979. (We lost 21-14 after a last-minute pass from Cal's Rich Campbell to Joe Rose, but who remembers that?)
I was 14 the first time I saw a Stanford game. It was 1953, and the football team was playing at USC, just 20 miles from my home in Long Beach, Calif. After Stanford lost, 23-20, I passed some students as I made my way to the streetcar stop. In defeat, they were cheerfully singing "Come Join the Band."
Three years later, when I was considering where to attend college, a few facts beckoned from the Stanford Freshman Handbook. First was the University's effort to appeal to the Uncommon Man. I was not sure that I was one, but I thought it was a worthy ideal to pursue. Second, the school won an average of 60 percent of its athletic contests. Third, Stanford Stadium was (and remains) the largest privately owned stadium in the country. I applied.
In the four decades since then, I've traveled more than 100,000 miles to see nearly 1,000 Stanford games in 15 sports. Compared with fans at other schools, Stanford rooters tend to be unusually reserved. Applause, rather than cheering, is the standard form of approbation. I have never heard a Stanford crowd boo a Stanford team, no matter how inept the performance. Most visiting teams are granted a courteous reception. Winning, while preferable, is perhaps less important to most than nabbing the best tailgating spot.
Of course not everybody shares my passion for spectator sports. James Michener wrote of the fan: "While sitting and watching he contributes nothing to the common good, and does not do those constructive things he might otherwise have done." Perhaps, but surely the same can be said of those more exalted who enjoy attending the symphony, opera or ballet.
I sympathize more with the views of theologian Michael Novak, who sees sports as a shared language that reaches across social and economic borders. "There are not many activities that can unite janitors, cafeteria workers, sophomores and Nobel Prize winners in common pleasure," wrote Novak, who claims to see a correlation between "true intellectuals" and "those with the greatest appreciation for sports."
And what would college sports be without the fans? In 1956, Stanford All-American quarterback John Brodie observed: "If enough people elected not to watch football, there wouldn't be a game. Imagine 22 guys out there in an empty stadium, all suited up and doing all those things to each other with absolutely no one watching. It would never happen." Or, to paraphrase Milton, they also serve who only stand and cheer (or, in Stanford's case, sit and clap).
In many ways, sports can be more fulfilling for the fan than for the athlete. I can compare and contrast Stanford quarterbacks Garrett, Brodie, Plunkett, Benjamin, Dils, Elway, Paye, Stenstrom and Hutchinson; I have seen them all play. I can ponder who might have won if their teams had played each other. Unlike athletes, who can only participate in one or perhaps two sports, I can experience as many as I wish. And I am unlikely to suffer any serious injury.
As Frederick Exley said in A Fan's Notes: "It was my destiny to sit in the stands with most men and acclaim others. It was my fate, my destiny, my end to be a fan."
Or, if Exley had stood in line for personalized license plates, perhaps a fanatic.
Bill Martin, '61, MS '62, finances his ticket habit by working as director of operations projects at Lam Research Corp. in Fremont, Calif.
