@nrdsb4: What made it worse was the team was still promoting itself as this clean, all american team when that happened. It drove me nuts in the 70’s when they promoted this ‘wholesomeness’, the whole Christian fellowship stuff, drives me nuts, because the public image wasn’t the reality underneath (don’t get me wrong, they had great teams under landry and some truly great players), it was just the holier than thou stuff that drove me nuts.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Also raised in Phila area and after waiting sooo long for the teams to win…
I have a relative who used to go to Red Sox/Yankee games wearing s Yale sweatshirt and root for the yanks. He survived.
Others went to a Falcons/saints game in NOLA wearing red and black in a sea of black and gold. They were harassed. Even by a little kid.
Some of my Facebook “friends” are relatives who live in New England. They are rabid Patriot fans. The stuff they post about other teams is totally tasteless–just plain crude sometimes. I don’t follow football and don’t care, but I am surprised by some of the relatives who do this–very polite in real life. So, I guess it’s jus the nature of the game.
Lots of rivalries on the west coast too, at college level (UCLA/USC) and professional level (SFGiants/Dodgers).
@jonri, most of the things I see are harmless and funny, not crude at all…I don’t like the gross posts on any team because I fail to see the humor in those
Patriots fans just want consistency. For starters. lets get some coverage of the Manning HGH story because if it was Brady, it would be everywhere.
Well, it’s pretty hard to find anyone who “hates” the Green Bay Packers.
Why?
They have a culture of not hiring jerks or criminals.
Their players tend to stick around for many years. They have a culture of promoting players from the practice squad.
The fans are loyal, but unfailingly midwestern “nice”.
Wear an opposing team’s jersey to a game at Lambeau, and you are likely to be invited to a tailgait party.
^ Plus no one can tell if a Green Bay fan punches you in the face anyway, since who could feel a punch from someone wearing 2 pairs of gloves and a pair of mittens? 
Green Bay is my second favorite team. Any time my hometown team (Giants) is out of the running, I root for GB.
Love Tom Brady. He is a class act.
“Well, it’s pretty hard to find anyone who “hates” the Green Bay Packers.”
Plenty of people in Chicago “hate” the Packers. (I don’t, since I couldn’t care less about any of it, but there are certainly those who see a rivalry.)
"Well, it’s pretty hard to find anyone who “hates” the Green Bay Packers.
Why? They have a culture of not hiring jerks or criminals."
Oh, how young you are! There was a time when a number of Packers were guests of the state penal system. They were looking to build a state prison and the joke was to put it in GB so the players could walk to work.
I’m a Packers fan but they were and are not perfect. Paul Hornung was suspended for betting long before anyone knew who Pete Rose was.
Rivalrys aside, how can you not just laugh at/with people severely underdressed in the bitter cold with yellow and green face paint wearing cheesehead hats.
Have been a supporter of them due to longtime connections and the intense loyalty of their fan base.
Former Mets and Jets fan, now Red Sox and Pats fan. Always rooted for whoever was playing the Yankees. Sometimes fans take things too seriously. This happens more than it should. There has been a breakdown in civil society.
It’s disgusting what happens to visiting fans, especially Yankee fans in Fenway park. I’m not proud of their treatment. That said, it happens in NY too. I remember Ranger-Islander fan brawls. Get a life, really.
I’ve been to road Red Sox games. Chicago, Toronto and Pittsburgh fans are very gracious. I should say that a Toronto fan visiting Fenway, apologized to me when her Blue Jays crushed the Red Sox. Gotta love Canadians!
Sorry to see the Pats lose last week, but give credit to Denver, and I’m grateful Brady was able to walk off the field after all of the hits he took.
Good natured rivalries are fun. Get too serious - not so much.
That’s exactly how I feel about it.
That’s how I feel about ALL sports rivalries that are anything other than light-hearted teasing! I’m friends with several USC grads, and they actually have dislike for UCLA over their rivalry. I just roll my eyes. It’s stupid.
Wonder how much of that is the USC grads having to put up with barbs from their UCLA rivals ribbing them over their past history of being an academically average at best college* for mostly well-off kids who didn’t have the stats to get admitted to UCLA.
That certainly seemed to play into my California relatives and their neighbors whenever this rivalry came up in the '80s and '90s.
- This was the era when USC was known as "University of Spoiled Children" as Senator McCain referenced when ribbing his current spouse's alma mater and in some Chinese-American communities...."University of Stupid Chinese". A few mid-late '90s USC grads recounted getting really tired of those insulting references from relatives, friends, and acquaintances who are UCLA alums/students.
No, it’s not about that at all. I’m talking about today, not the 80’s or 90’s. It’s just a stupid sports rivalry based solely on sports, and not on academic credentials one way or the other. They’re all stupid sports rivalries as far as I’m concerned. Any kind of rivalry except a light-hearted one is stupid.
@twoinanddone said, “Oh how young you are.”
Well, aren’t you sweet to think so. Thank you.
Actually, I’m in my very late 50’s, was born and raised 60 miles from Green Bay, and have lived from coast to coast (plus Hawaii) as an adult. We still attend as many games at Lambeau as we can, and have attended many non-Packer games in other parts of the country over the years. Different teams and stadiums have very different personalities.
A few teams are viscerally “hated” just about everywhere in the country outside of their own fan base, most aren’t.
Most teams have heated rivalries within their own divisions, that isn’t the same thing as being “hated” in general. Of course the Bears and the Packers have a heated rivalry. They’ve played each other 192 times. It is the, or one of the, longest-lasting rivalries in sports.
@twoinanddone needed to go back to 1963 to bring up Paul Hornung? How about Max McGee’s hangover during Superbowl I? Brett Favre’s stint in rehab? Is there a team, a school, a corporation or a family on earth that hasn’t had a scandal or two in 50 years?
LOL