I believe it goes without saying that the whole point of sports is to win. Take any historical team, be it football, baseball, basketball, and the difference between those franchises and the normal ones is the number of championships they have won. The Yankees have twenty-seven World Series championships, the Boston Celtics and the Lakers tie for seventeen, and the Patriots have six Super Bowl wins.

But what about the little guys? The teams that never won a championship or can’t even find success in the postseason?

There are a lot of factors that goes into why a team may or may not experience success: a star player is injured, going through 2-3 coaches every other season, the team is a small market and therefore big names in free agency go over to bigger market teams for more endorsement opportunities, and many more

But what does it mean to be a fan of said teams? As someone who’s dealt with it for his whole life, let me walk you through.

Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about. In 2017, the Cleveland Browns started the NFL season 0-16. They finished the season 1-31, to say that this season for them was terrible is an understatement. Now of course its funny to laugh at their woes and wonder “why are they being paid millions to play this game again?” But imagine the people that support this team, the people that buy the merch, the jerseys, goes to the games and spend hard earned money to watch them suck game after game.

You can say that it can be a waste of time or a waste of money sure, but remember people like these teams for some reason. Maybe someone you adore love the team like one of your parents, so you start liking them too. Maybe its a player on the team that you admire and look up to, maybe its an entirely different reason that is 100% personal who knows? What is important is that you represent this team.

For quite some time I have been a fan of the Orlando Magic. A franchise that the basketball world knows as the team that’s been rebuilding since Dwight Howard left to go to the Lakers which was ten years back. I have heard it all from people over the years: jokes, questions, man at times I would get quizzed because people thought I was lying to be different.

But why them? Well when I was younger I use to play basketball games on the Nintendo 64 and when I did I would choose Orlando because they were the color blue and it was my favorite. That’s all it took for me to be a lifetime fan, I remember my dad watching the games and seeing Tracy McGrady light up the other team was a treat. I’ve seen the old clips with Shaq and Penny, finals with Dwight Vs Kobe, when we drafted Victor Oladipo and I thought he would be a super star and lead us to the promise land, to the recent trading’s of half the team for younger players so that we can go into rebuilding mode yet again. For years we barely if ever get into the playoffs, if we do it is a first round exit. We have not had a player that gave us true hope for the future, we don’t even get a lot of national television games.

But I still represent them, because I am in too deep. I don’t see myself having that same passion for other teams. Other players yes like Giannis or Curry but not the Bucks as a whole or Golden State. I get excitied when I watch basketball in any form, from street games to game seven finals. But when its Orlando doing it, the fire in me gets lit up and I feel this constant wave of pay off. Its this sense of “WE’RE DOING IT, WE’RE BEATING THEM” the adrenaline rush and the overwhelming joy or seeing us do better far exceeds the feelings I have for any other player or team.

Right here is a picture of one of the jerseys in my collection. I have four jerseys, and out of all four, this is probably my favorite. Sure, I wear them cause I think from a fashion sense jerseys are cool, but this one gives me a layer of confidence and pride. Not only do I get to represent my team, but I also get a lot of people who say how cool the jersey is, or sometimes they tell me stories and experiences they had seeing a young Shaq play in this jersey in the 90’s.

This is all from the perspective of one twenty-three-year-old fan. Imagine people older or younger who love this team just as much as I, or even more so. It doesn’t even have to be this team. Whether you’re a Cavaliers fan, a Detroit Tigers fan, or a New York Giants fan, you know the struggles of representing a team that’s just terrible. But still show your pride and remember that at some point, your team will get that one trade or that one draft pick that will change the scope of the entire franchise. Even if it takes ten + years.