Why Do We Love the Teams We Love?

I got in a discussion the other night with a friend while we were watching the Super Bowl. She was curious about how I became a Chicago Bears fan while living in Dallas. I had mentioned the cities I had lived in a previous conversation but forget to say that I spent part of my childhood living an hour west of Chicago.

My family lived there until the fall of 1986, which just happened to be a few months after the 1985 Chicago Bears destroyed the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX. That Bears team had big personalities like Jim McMahon, memorable nicknames like Refrigerator Perry, a larger than life coach in Mike Ditka, and a dominant running back in Walter Payton. How could you not be a Bears fan living so close to the action of that team?

That conversation also made me think that our allegiances to our sports teams have very little to do with who we choose to root for. We mostly end up being fans of the teams we’re close to or our families follow. It’s rare that we actually just choose a team to root for, but I do know at least one person who did that very thing.

I’ll stay true to my Bears, though. The team was greatness and they’re still living large. Did you see the Boost Mobile commercial they were in during the Super Bowl on Sunday? If not, here it is below:

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I’d like to hear from you. What team(s) are you a fan of and why?