It’s almost time for the NFL Draft and I’m excited. Like many other NFL fans, I’m starving. All the grandiose trades and free agency acquisitions that our minds have concocted ever since our favorite teams were eliminated from the playoffs never came to reality. That’s alright; we still have the draft to feed our starving minds something exciting. This will at least carry us until August, when we can at least get follow the hourly updates of training camp. So we turn on ESPN, our eyes glued to the screen and the scrolling ticker below patiently waiting for our team to finally come up like an investor waiting for his companies’ stock prices.  When a representative from our team finally takes the podium and announces your team’s draft selection, there is probably a good chance you’ve never heard of the guy. Not to be discouraged, this provides you with at least a good hour of research activities, scouring the internet for any bit of information on the newly acquired player. If you’re lucky, some obsessive college student from the player’s alma mater has already posted a highlight reel of the player on YouTube accompanied by AC/DC or some rap song.

 After a while of doing some research, you call your fellow fans and confidently talk about these new players as if you had scouted them yourself. You might even scroll the blogosphere for other fan’s opinions of the players, it doesn’t matter that half the comments from these bloggers will be regurgitated tidbits or even verbatim quotes from ESPN articles. The dialogue and discussions created in days following the Draft are the dessert to the previously starving NFL fans. We know it’s going to be a long football-less Summer, especially for the non-baseball fans amongst us, and we’ll take what we can get for now, and the draft is enough to occupy our minds. It’s enough time to fantasize about how the cornerback from Oregon will somehow miraculously transform our last in the league ranked pass defense into an unstoppable force. We fantasize despite our rational brains telling us there’s a good chance he won’t even be a starter until next year. However, there’s always a chance, and this chance only leads an attentive tracking of his progress during training camp.

If this whole experience seems foreign and even strange to you, you’re probably not a fan. There exist two theories of the etymological origins of “fan”. The first theory  stating that “fan” is derived from “fancy” which was used to denote any follower of a specific hobby or sport. The second theory is pretty well known and almost intuitive. That being that “fan”is a derivation and or abbreviation of “fanatic” Of course I’d have to mention that in British English, the word supporter is generally used in place of “fan”. Ironic, for a nation infamous for its extreme hooligans, soccer fans whose crazy antics fully embody the negative connotations of the word "fanatic."

 My preference for the second theory is the definition of “fanatic” itself, “a person with extreme and uncritical enthusiasm and zeal.” I believe this definition best captures the mindset of a fan whose brain flashes between extreme elation and rational self-questioning like a gambler deciding whether he should spent his last night of vacation chasing his loses at the casino. Personally, I don’t “get” gambling but can at least sympathize to its irrationality. In fact, I’d even argue that gambling behavior is more understandable.  A luck day for a gambler is having a pocketful of newly acquired cash, the same can hardly said about a fan experiencing a big win. For a fan, a lucky day is short-lived, there’s always another game to win or even another Championship. 

Being a fan is all about the saga; it’s being intellectually and emotionally invested in an epic saga that could never be scripted. It pulls you in, taking you on a roller-coaster ride greater than any season you could order on Netflix. A football season is more than just seeing how many wins your team will accumulate over its sixteen games. It’s a grand narrative densely packed with smaller narratives and side stories that are all perpetually unfolding.

 Psychology has offered man theories as the phenomenon of fandom; theories such as escapism, solidarity, the experience of ’eustress’ and vicarious engagement.  These theories all capture important elements to the fandom experience but fail to capture the simplicity involved in the love of the saga.