No, it shows that I read your previous post:

What gets me about Vandy fans is this notion that because they have class and integrity, billy-jay should root for them, even though they are not a good football program.

Now, you toned it down in the next one, and that’s fine, but let’s not pretend like what I said above wasn’t warranted based on comments which you yourself typed.

As for your second post, I don’t disagree that Florida brings a lot to the table. I would expect to you try to convince billy-jay that those factors should weigh more heavily, which is exactly what I tried to do for VU in my post, which contained no self-righteousness and no condemnation of any other team’s fans.

As for the CCC baseball team, I’m sure they deserve fan support, too, among fans of whatever division/conference they’re in. billy-jay, though, implied that he was interested in a D-I school—and he specifically mentioned only SEC schools—so I threw Vanderbilt’s name into the ring, because, quite frankly, if integrity is something you’re looking for in a college team, you can’t do much better.

I cheer for an SEC team in college football that is no doubt shifty in their recruiting and academic practices. And honestly, I don’t care. I don’t look to the University of Florida or any professional sports organization for moral credibility or direction. I would like to think that Urban Meyer is above that, the way I actually do think that Mark Richt is, but I know he’s probably just as slimy as Nick Saban, Phil Fulmer, Bobby Petrino, Les Miles, etc. The point is that SEC football is corrupt. There’s so much competition to get and keep a 5-star recruit that, unfortunately, it appears as if you have to, unless other variables being in place.

Let me clarify what I said earlier. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking at values and virtues, but I think that Florida brings much to the table for a fan without, unfortunately, possesses those things. And if character and integrity is what we’re looking for, and we could flip the sport to baseball (we have no football team), then we should all be a fan of Clearwater Christian College baseball. Yeah, we suck, and I’m one of the worst players on the team, but you’ll never find a better group of guys.

Hopefully that clarifies what I was trying to get across earlier.

Good points Marc and Stu. I want my team to field the best it CAN, but not without consideration of the people that comprise it (hence I’ve always been opposed to those people who said we should get Bonds because we needed power).

Charles, speaking of hustling, I was at the Nats-LA game the other night and Willie Harris impressed me when he ran from left field to back up third base on a throw from right. It’s not exactly something Manny Ramirez would do. I don’t think hustling trumps talent–clearly one would rather have Manny in LF than Willie Harris–but it’s nice to see. The problem is a lot of people, it seems to me, root for great players and then conflate that with them being good guys. For example, Joe DiMaggio became a beloved figure but he really seems to have been pretty much of a jerk.

You can like an individual and pull for him—even be a fan of his—but want him off your team because he thus far hasn’t figure out how to help it win.

When you’re a fan of a team, though, you don’t just drop it because it doesn’t perform. At least, “good” fans don’t. As you say, Marc, there is more than one factor that plays into being a fan.

As far as Vanderbilt goes, yeah, I’d love to get every single one of the most athletic guys who can qualify academically and stay out of prison, and who aren’t interested in taking illegal gifts to come to school. But there aren’t a lot of those guys. We get a few, sure (and we’re starting to get a lot more), but I’m a fan of Vanderbilt, first and foremost, and so I pull for even the crappier players for the simple fact that they put on the Vanderbilt uniform.

And, while I’d of course like (love) to win more games, it feels good to know that we’re doing things the right way, and that if we ever do break through, boy, will we have earned it. And I think the doing-things-the-right-way factor is a legitimate one to consider in choosing a team to pull for.