Put me in coach, I'm ready to play

Sports fans sometimes do weird stuff

    I went to the NIU-Toledo game tonight.  Boy, was it cold!  The wind was howling out of the north.  There were snow flurries at times....well, I saw a couple of flakes.  (No, I am not referring to the people I was with.)  Long underwear helped, but it was still darn cold.
     NIU won the game 27-24.
     As I was watching, I thought of the strange things fans do to support their teams.
The face paint:  Watching NFL games, the camera always focuses in on someone who has the team's colors on their face or body.  Maybe one side of their face is green and the other yellow if they are Packer fans.  Or blue and orange if you are an Illini fan or a fan of the people in Chicago who used to play football.  Now, I understand kids doing it....but when I see older guys in their 50s and 60s, I kind of wonder about them and what motivates them.
     High fives:  When NIU scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter, people in the rows ahead of us stood up and started high fiving people around them.  That made no sense.  They were sitting in the stands trying to keep warm and had nothing to do with the touchdown, but they acted as if they ran or called the play.
     Cheering:  People should cheer when they go to a game.  No matter the sport, you need to yell a little.  Things like, "Go Team" or "Dee fence" or "You suck."  To be honest, sometimes I just want to yell out random things, like "marmalade" or "graham cracker" or "corned beef on rye."
     Oops:  There was a player on the Toledo team with the last name of Pringle and I turned it into an obscene joke.
     Costumes:  I see them all the time in pro games.  The Viking fan who dresses like a Viking.  The people who show up in bear costumes.  They seem more common in football games, but the Marlin Man and Green Hat Guy are also semi famous in the baseball world.  How do you drive a car dressed like a Viking?  Do you wear your horns to the stadium, or put them on there?  How do you go to the can in a bear costume? And do you ride a bus in a bear costume?
     Going shirtless:  I can understand in the summer, sitting in the bleachers at a ball game.  But come December, and you will see guys without shirts at the football game.  Sometimes they will have the teams' name painted on their chests, one letter at a time.  It's ok in Tampa, or in a domed stadium, but you have to be seriously alcoholed up to do it at a Bears game when it is 12 degrees outside.   And if someone goes to the bathroom and the camera catches your group, you could be the bars, or ears, or bers or even bares if you get out of order.  Even saber.  Or rasbe, which isn't a word but makes as much sense as risking frostbite.  Root for a team with a big name, and you need to bring a lot of people!  Eight for Seahawks, and more people than in some towns for the Buccaneers.
     Anyway, it was a good time.  Saw a great game, had some great food with some great people.
     Now if I could only wash the red off my chest.