Mollywhopping
A walk through the desert of long distance sports fandom
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In that instant, my Dad reminded me how unwelcome I was being who I was. Let me set the scene, the air is hot and damp in late May in suburban Michigan. The year is 2002, and every block is still dotted with American flags hanging off their porches, red white, and blue bunting on the garages. Looking back it looked like Fourth of July year round for a few years then. All of our windows are open in my family’s 795 sq. ft. home, no central air to be found, body’s sticky with the day’s sweat as we crowd around the 32-inch CRT TV. It was game seven of the NHL Western Conference Finals my Colorado Avalanche versus the hometown Detroit Red Wings, and it was the fifth playoff meeting between these two teams, with the Avs winning three of the previous four meetings. The rivalry between the two teams is something of legend and surely nothing the NHL will ever see again due to the sheer brutality of the games. Game seven of the Western Conference Finals—the winner of this series was sure to be the favorite in the Finals, there was no better stage for this rivalry to end. Seven or eight of us crammed into our tiny living room, I’m a bundle of nerves, and everyone around me is a Red Wings fan—the goals come fast. The entire series has been close, neither team winning by more than two goals, and here I am eyes wide watching Patrick Roy, unequivocally one of the greatest goalies ever let in four goals to the Wings in the first period, the first goal coming only two minutes into the game. Joe Louis Arena is a mere 15 miles down Jefferson Ave. from where I’m sitting and the way it’s rocking and roaring on the TV I feel as though the game’s being played in our long cement driveway. I feel dizzy with fear, embarrassment, shame—with teenage disbelief. To call it a barrage is unfair to barrages, it’s a complete mollywhopping, when the sixth Wings goal finds the back of the net one of my childhood heroes was ousted as a mere mortal. The look of bewilderment on Roy’s face as he’s watching the replay on the bench at the Joe made me empathize with him. Yeah man I can’t believe it either. Here have a look for yourself in the video below.
I was crushed. To make matters worse, during the celebrations of my friends in the cramped living room, my Dad who didn’t live with me for three or four years now, reaches over to me, grabs my Avs hat off of my head, tosses it onto the floor and stomps on it. All in slow motion, I'm sitting there paralyzed, my friends are understandably so, laughing as hard as you’d imagine a group of 12-13-year-old boys would be. I didn’t yell, or fight. I black out the rest of the night. Having my hat pulled off of my head and ceremonially stomped by my Dad in front of my friends in response to my team losing was enough to trigger that response in my brain. This is a seminal moment in my sports fandom. My lived experiences of that day kind of stick with me like a bad tattoo that only I can see.
I’m not from here, but I’ve lived here for 25 or so years. I won’t ever really be from here, which is something I’m entirely at peace with that. Like an immigrant without an accent. When I meet people who moved to Michigan as kids my eyes light up—just like me! I ask them a million questions, I ask them if they also feel this weird xenophobia tied to sports teams. Those interactions have only happened to me a small handful of times. Even fewer of them, post-college since living in the city of Detroit. People are born here and live here to stay close to their parents and extended family largely for childcare reasons, and the wonderfully low cost of living here. I get it, a combined income of $100,000 goes a long way here compared to a lot of different places in America. If you leave Michigan for NYC, LA, or Chicago, you often times never come back. For me, to live here is to blend into the crowd. I can’t go a month without someone asking me why I root for Denver sports teams, but what they’re really asking is why don’t I root for Detroit sports teams? Of those people I mentioned who moved here as kids, a few of them are now hardcore Detroit sports fans. Giving in to the tide. One friend of mine whose family moved here from the Chicago suburbs is no longer a Bears fan—gave it up because it was easier.
My family moved from Denver to Metro Detroit in the mid-90s, my Dad was from here, and believe it or not back then, there was more work here than in Denver—so we moved here. Denver was something of an old western outpost in those days, a flyover city, a place that only ski bums and ranchers were drawn to. A far cry from the boom state Colorado is today, I mean between 2010 and 2021 Colorado added 774,518 residents, just a little more than the entire population of Alaska or around 140,000 more than the current population of Detroit. I’ve wanted to write about this for years, well not the numbers part, but the part about being an outsider because of my sporting fandom. “Why not just give up on your teams?” I’ve been asked. And boy have I been asked this. Well, loyalty is for whatever reason really deeply important to me, especially when it comes to family—and whatever you call godparents.
Growing up my life was full of sports, I was obsessed with NHL cards, with John Elway, with reading the ESPN almanac’s just memorizing stats, ‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich’s basketball school VHS’s, you name it. My parents, however, were not sports people. My father lived life to the fullest and was a huge fan of working construction, drinking, and NASCAR— in that order. Never one for traditional sports he got into NASCAR living down south in the ‘80s when it was still a rebel thing, and hadn’t made it mainstream.
His NASCAR fandom was like a religion to him though. He taped every single race, road-tripped me to tracks, and forced me to stand up whenever Richard Petty was on TV—“Sean boy!” He’d exclaim. “Stand up the King’s on TV!” He’d say with a dead seriousness all while belly-laughing at the absurdity. He never had the same reverence for Detroit’s sports teams.
My mom on the other hand was the absolute most supportive sports mom I could have asked for. She would take me to games, would get me the jerseys, etc. My mom is the best, she just doesn’t have much of a sporting opinion on her own to push me towards teams. That leaves me guided by my big brother Nick, and my godmother Dawn. Nick was my older brother by seven years. He was born in Colorado whereas I just barely missed the cut by a few weeks and was born in Florida. He had a different mom than I, my half brother but I never called him that, we grew up together, and he didn’t feel like any less of a brother. Nick loved the Denver Broncos, a few of the last words he said to me were “When you come back out to Denver we can go to a Broncos game together.” That was our bond, the Broncos were something we had in common wading in the vast sea of differences we had in our lives. We never got to go to that Broncos game together. Never take anything for granted. Nick liked the Avs but wasn’t crazy about hockey as an institution. Now Dawn, Dawn was my mom’s best friend since grade school back in West Virginia, those two thick as thieves, Dawn introduced my parents and never left Denver. Dawn is a sports fan, sports fan. Dawn has been a Denver Broncos season ticket holder for decades and has a love for the Avs since they came to town in the mid-90s. Her basement is a shrine to Denver sports, beer signs, flags, life-sized cutouts, and framed photos from games, when it comes to Denver sports memorabilia Dawn has it all. When we would visit Dawn after moving to Michigan we’d go down into her basement and I’d feel like I was in a fun house but instead of panes of glass and mirrors, it’s John Elway, Patrick Roy and Tim Tebow’s (yes I know) faces looking back at me rather than my own. Every birthday and Christmas as a kid Dawn would send me some Avalanche or Broncos merch, hoping I’d never give up on being a long-distance fan, a Denver sports fan in exile. In the early internet days, these two being in my life always made me feel some sort of community in a weird way. I had two people in my life I could talk to on the phone about the Nuggets, Avs, and Broncos whenever they called, directing the conversation those three ways when I felt like I needed to vent about something. That was important for me as I grew up around a monoculture of Detroit sports and only Detroit sports. Kids didn’t want to hear about Terrell Davis or Dikembe Mutombo, and I don’t blame them.
I believe the other major factor in my sticking with my team was movement. My family moved around a lot, I lived in three states by the time I was taking swimming lessons, and then once we got to Michigan I lived in nine different homes between moving here and going away to college. Moving was always just a part of my life, unmoored at times, switching schools mid-school year sometimes. That is to say, I needed something constant in life. Moving around, parents getting divorced, all of that is doable if in every room I hang the same framed John Elway poster above my bed. A sense of normalcy, no matter where we go I’m searching the TV for the same Denver sports teams.
As I got older things stayed the same and I’m thankful for having these teams with me along the way—they never once made me friends lol quite the opposite. In my 20s guys were more aggressive to me as if I would dare go against the grain and stick with the teams I started rooting for as a little kid. I’d get yelled at, or mocked for wearing a jersey of my out-of-state teams. Time is a flat circle and all of that. In my 30s however as much as they presented more of the same from the people around me, the way the internet started blossoming in regards to supporting teams long distance was exciting and relieving at the same time. The first time I chatted with someone on a message board about the Denver Nuggets I felt like I was releasing the pressure on balloon that had been wrapped around my head. I felt euphoric finding my people online. I felt so seen for the first time and there was no explanation needed. I didn’t have to worry if they’d be the type of Wings fan that wanted to fight me because they saw professional hockey players get in a fight on TV 15 years prior. Thanks to Twitter, message boards, and streaming being a long-distance sports fan is easier than ever. The internet has had its hand in some pretty vile things, but the creation of a community for those without one is one of the great things that I will never take for granted. In my 30s I feel like having to put up with all of this bullshit just because of the teams I root for has made me more understanding, and honestly made the highs hit me harder. Perfect example, when the Broncos won Super Bowl 50 I was sitting on a couch at a friend of a friend of a friend’s house in Saint Clair Shores. No one, I mean no one this party is watching the game as the seconds ticked down. I had my head in my hands and my friend who brought me there was patting me on the back & shaking my shoulders “Buddy you won! how do you feel!!” And I felt a million emotions but none were celebratory. It was still to this day the weirdest few minutes of my life. I felt like I had won the Mega Millions but I couldn’t tell anyone. It felt very Puritan the way I sat there teary eyed wanting to scream at the top of my lungs and celebrate—jumping, dancing, hugging strangers—but I quietly sat on that stranger’s couch just taking it in. I’d have given anything to have been 1280 miles away in a bar in LoDo doing exactly that. The community one builds online can only take you so far. Real human experiences with others who are into the same thing, there’s no greater high.
My departing message to you is twofold, first don’t shun others because they have different interests than you, instead bring them in. Second, if you’re into something that your neighbors, coworkers, classmates, or family aren’t into—go find your community. I promise there are people out there who would love to have you join their corner of the world.
Be good to one another,
Sean
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Great stuff man. Looking forward to more.
A gorgeous, painful meditation on finding meaning and community, particularly in early adolescence, and where professional sports play a role in all of that.
I remember rooting for the Chicago Bulls throughout late elementary and early high school. Pittsburgh doesn't have a basketball team, and when I saw the way Derrick Rose played at Memphis, I told myself I would root for wherever he ended up. Flash forward to now and I'm half and half, Penguins & Steelers, Sixers and Phillies (sometimes Pirates). A mix of my upbringing as well as a sign of my own independence, and perhaps a third contributor: a sign of my need for community in my own early adolescence, in abandoning the Bulls for Philadelphia's basketball team to have a mutual connection with my peers.
Really enjoyed this piece. Sports are so much bigger than the games that are played, they are parts of our own story that we can hold on to, celebrate, or leave altogether.