Most Passionate/Dedicated Fans

[TetRefine]

The most dedicated fans in all of the sports world are those of college football. Nowhere else will you find the intensity, passion, dedication, and tradition that you find on the campuses of America's largest universities on game day. Its pretty awesome to see 60,000-115,000 people pack into a stadium, all wearing the same colors, and go nuts cheering for their team. I picked out a couple clips of some of my favorite moments of fan passion from college football.

 

Oh and for those of you who say soccer fans are far more passionate, being a violent, psychotic nut job does not equal being passionate. It just equals being an idiot. I never understood why soccer fans felt the need to be violent hooligans. 

 

 

Skip to 2:48 and watch till about 3:40. The University of Michigan's marching band playing Hail To The Victors (their fight song) as all 115,000 fans sing along.

 

 

 

60,000 West Virginia University fans singing John Denver's Country Roads in unison after a victory.

 

 

 

 

*Disclaimer: I have personal connections to both Michigan and West Virginia so I may be biased. Feel free to add you're own.

Edited March 5, 2014 by TetRefine

[methodwriter85]

Unfortunately University of Delaware is rather sports apathetic. Kinda disappointing.

[Daddydavek]

You make some great points and I can't help but note that it's springtime.  (Or it's supposed to be!)

 

So let me see, even in a big school with a big stadium that's no more than 7-8 home games in the fall each year or 8 x 115,000 so call it about 920,000 fans.

 

I can't deny that college football is exciting.  But football is a short season.  Especially compared to most major league sports outside of football.   

 

If you go to the site:   http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2013    you will see that there were 8 MLB franchises that had 3 million or more fans in 2013 and at least one of them is from a relatively small market (the Cardinals here in St. Louis).   We routinely draw over 40,000 fans for a long so-called boring baseball game and have for the last decade which you can verify by selecting the various past years at the top of that page.   And yes most of the fans are in Cardinal colors (think RED) and they give standing ovations to great plays routinely.  Sometimes even to opposing players unlike what you might find in Philly!  So when it comes to describing the most passionate dedicated fans, it just might be how you slice and dice it.  

 

Edited March 6, 2014 by Daddydavek

[Krista]

Although they're not all that loud and crazy during the basketball games, the University of Kentucky fans are certainly something. You have the fans that criticize every single dribble, pass, and shot. There are those that can run weaker coaches completely out of town.. and then there are those that think every player that steps foot onto the court poops rainbows and gold.. So..  It definitely is "the" place to be as a Coach, but the fans really can make it a hellish environment. Not saying it's a bad thing or a good thing, just a passionate one.

 

Then Duke's fans are infamous for being "crazies." But as a Kentucky fan, I just can't bring myself to truly acknowledge them. I damn near have to cut up my fan card for even mentioning them in the same post.  

[Zombie]

Oh and for those of you who say soccer fans are far more passionate, being a violent, psychotic nut job does not equal being passionate. It just equals being an idiot. I never understood why soccer fans felt the need to be violent hooligans.

 

I lost interest in football - oops, "soccer" - a long time ago partly for this reason and also it's become such a cynical business corrupted by money. Rugby for me is just a much better game all round, more exciting to watch and more mature, fans are not segregated, they can drink beer responsibly while enjoying the game, it's family friendly and everyone has a really good time. Oh yeah, and one of the best top rank Refs, Nigel Owens, is openly gay - no-one cares