playthrough said:
My competition in a rural county many years ago was legendary in his homer-ism. His biggest homer sport was wrestling, where he'd be barking at the home team like a second coach, telling them what moves to make. When one kid won a state title, he gave him a giant bear hug.
Must be something with wrestling. I'm sitting in the press froom now for day two of our state's championships. Last night at the opening round, I encountered far more "fans" wearing orange press passes than I did working media.
Anyway, I could tell stories like the radio guy who walked into the girls state finals wearing a bright orange shirt that evidenced his hope for the local team, or I could tell you about his partner who has a t-shirt for every local team in our coverage area and wears them to each contest. I could go back to near my hometown where the "dean of XXXXX County sports" is a school board member for the area powerhouse. Then there's the twice weekly paper in our area who constantly rips off all of my quotes/stats/information about the ONLY local team in that paper's coverage area...and then she writes brilliant columns with lines like, "I was so proud of the girls. We didn't win, but we played so hard and showed great sportsmanship."
But the greatest example of over-the-top homerism, and the one thing that tested my neutral observer status, went something like this: I was a 20-year old college English major, looking to get into journalism for the first time. I got work consistently stringing for my old hometown paper, so I'd make the 1 1/2 hour trek home on Friday nights to cover games for the Gannett paper that covered me back when I was a three-sport athlete at Rural County High. Anyway, I cover a lot of different football games, including a few for my old high school, who becomes the biggest story in the area by rising to the state's top ten, winning a conference title and upsetting the perennial power in the area.
Oh, and one more important detail, my father was an assistant coach for the team who had a heart attack during two-a-days and it was well known that it would be his last year coaching after having done it for 30+ years. So, state tourney starts and I get assigned, did not ask, to cover the game. Rural County, likely looking ahead to a probable rematch with the perennial power, finds itself in a battle against a .500 opponent and eventually they lose a very close game.
I head down to the sideline to ask the tough questions about how a 8-1 ranked team just lost a home playoff game. My old coach is in tears, talking about how much the senior class (who I had played with) meant to him, how much he was going to miss them...and then, really fighting back the tears, how much my father meant to him and how he was going to miss him.
I shook his head, no hug, and walked to the other side to talk to the winning coach. Smalltown guy who had been covering for the road team, and who had been saddled up beside me while interviewing the winning coach, practically gallops to the other coach, gives him a big hearty handshake and says..."Wow, it sure is fun watching you guys make people cry".
Easily the closest I've ever come to beating someone's ass.
