Evidence of Crazy Fans

A few pictures of the crazy fans of sports. It seems that American football and European football, or soccer, have the craziest fans. College basketball fans seem to be pretty devoted as well.


Duke Basketball fans


UCLA Basketball fans


England and Potrugal soccer fans


Italian soccer fans


Brazilian soccer fan

Dutch soccer fans


English soccer fan sleeping outside the World Cup 2006.


Tennessee Volunteers football fan


West Virginia Mountaineers football fan


Green Bay Packers Fan

Another Packers fan, also known as a "Cheesehead"

Sports Fans Are Crazy

Sports fans are crazy. They are crazy about the teams they devote themselves to. They even develop superstitions that they think will improve the luck of their teams. A October 2007 article on ESPN.com explains that recent poll results showed that 1 in 5 sports fans does something to try to improve their teams' luck or to keep from jinxing their team.

WASHINGTON -- It didn't take Heather Pate long to figure out why her beloved Auburn University football team had begun losing. It was the pink toothbrush.

Pate, a lifelong fan of the school, has long refused to own anything with even a hint of red, the color of archrival Alabama. That puts her among the one in five sports fans who say they do things in an attempt to bring good luck to their favorite team or avoid jinxing them, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.

The survey showed no real difference by gender, race or education in whether people try finding a way to help their team win. But those who do tend to be younger and make more money than those willing to risk letting the athletes determine a game's outcome. They also are more likely to be single.

Lisa Rawlinson, 40, a pharmaceutical sales manager from Huntington, W.Va., won't watch crucial Cleveland Indians games on television. She didn't watch Sunday night but her Indians somehow lost the decisive game anyway against the Red Sox, allowing Boston to creep into the World Series, which starts Wednesday.

Todd Williams, 33, of Lexington, Ky., likes to watch University of Kentucky games clad in Kentucky blue-and-white apparel -- and clutching his lucky basketball. For Yankees fan Paul Hegyi, 31, of Sacramento, Calif., it's a lucky bat -- which failed him last week when the Indians bumped New York from the playoffs.

Mario Alvarado, 40, of Houston leaves Houston Texans' football games if they are trailing. He did so Sunday and by the time he turned the game on at home, the Texans had taken a lead -- only to lose as the Tennessee Titans kicked a game-winning field goal as time expired.

"If I hadn't turned it on, I probably wouldn't have jinxed them,'' he said.

And I must admit that I have found myself to be part of that one fifth of sports fans who is superstitious. The first 4 times I saw my favorite baseball team, the NY Yankees play, the lost. At the end of the fourth game and into the fifth, I was really beginning to wonder if I was causing them to lose. And after they lost the fourth game, my friend suggested that I wear a different jersey, since I had worn the same jersey to every game. So I switched jerseys for the fifth game, and the Yankees won. Coincidence or superstition? I guess we'll never know, but I still find myself thinking that it was the different jersey.

Fans are not the only ones who develop superstitions. The athletes we all watch have superstitions and rituals, as well. In an article on Psychologyofsports.com, Jason Carney interviewed a number of college athletes who all have what would seem to be crazy rituals they perform before games. They say if they don't do it, they feel as though they won't perform as well. Some of the rituals mentioned include a bubble bath the night before a track meet, brushing teeth before a basketball game, and convinving oneself they are The Flash before a track meet. Another famous superstition in sports is Micheal Jordan's. He wore his college basketball shorts underneath his Chicago Bulls shorts for good luck. In baseball, it's a widely known fact that you do not step on the baselines before the game or in between innings. It's just bad luck. Players and coaches go out of their way to make sure they step over the baselines.

And recently in the news, probably the mother of all superstitions....A Boston Red Sox fan who was a construction worker at the new Yankee Stadium buried a David Ortiz jersey under two feet of concrete while working at the Stadium. The Yankees eventually removed the jersey, and it was sold for charity. But the Red Sox fan believed that the jersey would curse the new Stadium, and the team that resided there. From an article on gothamist.com:

The Bronx-born Yankee-hating and Red Sox-loving construction worker who buried a Red Sox jersey in the new Yankee Stadium has given photographic evidence to the Post proving it's no tall tale. "Gino" explained, "As I stuck it in, I said, 'The Yankees are done for the next 30 years.' I only put a 30-year curse because I'm 46 and in 30 years I'll be dead, and I won't care if the Yankees win then."

gothamist.com/2008/04/14/red_sox_jersey.php

Sports & Color

I posted briefly once before about loyalty to color, and how it is very apparent in sports. I am going to delve into it a little deeper, as I am using this topic for my final project. I will be focusing in the fans of the Washington Nationals, but color and sports have been part of our society for many years.

The fans' loyalty to a teams colors stems from the colors that the team wears on their uniform. Uniforms go way back in history, when people wore them in religious ceremonies, and in the Roman Empire whose armies wore uniforms. For this purpose though, we will fast forward in history to the beginning of the 19th century, when team sports in America really began to pick up. The sports uniform began as a simple sweater with a letter or two on it...

Tampa Florida's first football team

http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/photos/recreate/sports/0661.htm

Brown University baseball team, 1872
http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/sports/early_printable.html

As sports evolved, so did the uniforms. In the 20's, 30's, and 40's, the jerseys began to look more like what we see today, instead of the big clunky sweaters. But were still very simple colors, and had few words or symbols on them...

Suncook New Hampshire 1940's baseball uniform
http://www.sportsartifacts.com/index.html

Horace Partridge 1920's-30's baseball uniform

http://www.sportsartifacts.com/index.html

Just a few short years later, in the 50s, uniforms began having more symbols and names.

Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers, 1950s

http://www.bionikmedia.com/index.php?cPath=8

In the 60's and 70's, colors and designs became brighter and better, as technology to make them became better.

1966 Baltimore Orioles Brooks Robinson jersey

1976 Texas Rangers Gaylord Perry jersey

As everything did, uniforms changed again in the 1980's....

1984 San Diego Padres Tony Gwynn jersey

1985 White Sox Carlton Fisk

And finally, we got out of the 80's and things got better.

Chicago White Sox home jersey

http://www.sportinggiants.com/MLB_jerseys_ALC.html

San Diego Padres home jersey

http://www.sportinggiants.com/Baseball_jerseys_NLW.html

So, through this evolution of the uniform, we have become devoted to the colors that are associated with the team closest to wear we live.

New Project...

Ok, starting over with the final project. I'm not going to totally throw out my idea, keeping the collage part of it. Since I am so interested in sports, I am going to look more into the relationship between sports and color, and how fans become loyal to the color of their favorite team. I plan on going to a National's game, photographing players and fans, and then organizing them into a photomosaic of the National's logo, the big W.

David Hockney

David Hockney is a British artist who was an influential part of the 60's pop movement. Hockney is an all-around artist, who has done paintings, photography, and sculpture. Between 1970 and 1986, Hockney worked on what he called his "Joiners," or photocollages. Hockney would take a varying amount, anywhere from 5 to 150, polaroids or photolab prints of one subject or scene. He would take each one at a slightly different time and perspective, which would result in the work having a similarity to Cubism. In his earlier Joiners, Hockney would have his subject move in order to show the movements from the photographer's perspective. In later works, Hockney changed his technique and moved the camera around the subject.

Hockney actually dicovered this technique on accident. While he was working on a painting of a living room and terrace in LA, he took photographs of the space and glued them together in a grid. After seeing the polaroids all together, Hockney realized it was a narrative, leading the viewer through the room. At one point in his career, Hockney was exclusively working on his photography.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hockney)


Merced River, Yosemite Valley, 1982, 1982
http://www.autrynationalcenter.org/yosemite/images/c_hockney.jpg


Pearblossom Highway, 11-18th April 1986 #2 1986
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/hockney_ext.html


My Mother, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, Nov. 82 #4 1982
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/hockney_ext.html

Final Project

For my final project, I would like to put together two photo collages in the style of David Hockney. I want to do one in color, and one in black and white. The point of doing them differently is to see what affect removing color has. I think that it will make the composition seem less three-dimensional, and very flat and boring. I want to photograph something where color is an important element, in order to show how the absence of color can change how we view something.

Red

Red. Red is such an important color in our lives. It is used so frequently for so many things. In human color psychology, red is associated with emotions that stir the blood, like anger, passion, and love. Red is also used as a symbol for sin, guilt, and passion. It is related to adultery-- in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, the main character Hester Prynne is punished for adultery by having a red letter A sewn into her clothing. The devil, who represents sin, is almost always depicted as being red, surrounded by flames.

http://www.paralada.org/Estonia_self/Estonia_htm/SWgeekhtm/TheDevilGA/DevilGA03.jpg

Red catches people's attention, and is often used either in a negative way to indicate danger and emergency, or in a positive way in advertising to gain more viewers, or in nature, as a ripe fruit announces its readiness with its red color. Several studies have indicated that red carries the strongest reaction of all the colors, with the level of reaction decreasing gradually with orange, yellow, and white, respectively. Because of this, scientists have repeatedly recommended red for warning signals, labels, and signs. Because of these recommendations, red has seen widespread use as a danger signal, in stop signs, to warn people of extreme heat or flammability, and even to signal warnings in sports such as soccer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stop_sign_MUTCD.svg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spl/92471117/

Red is one of the most common colors used on national flags throughout the world. On these flags it carries the same meanings which it does anywhere else: the blood, sacrifice, and courage of those who defended their country, the sun and the hope and warmth it brings, and the sacrifice of Christ's blood (in some historically Christian nations) are a few examples. Red is the color of the flags of several countries which once belonged to the former British Empire.

http://we-sell-it.co.uk/value/prodpages/shipping-services/spanish-flag.jpg

http://www.allamericanflagpoles.com/aaf_images/flag.jpg

http://www.geliosoft.com/3d-flag-screensavers/uk-flag-screensaver.jpg

Turquoise

I think turquoise is an often overlooked color. We automatically think of blue, or even teal. And in some shades, turqouise isn't the most appealing color, but other times it's quite nice. The word turquoise actually comes from the French word for Turkish. The color is actually based on the gemstone turquoise...

http://images.exoticindiaart.com/jewelry/turquoise_stone_jm51sm.jpg

In holistic medicine, turquoise is believed to have a caliming effect. It is often used to treat patients who are prone to panic attacks or mania. Many psychiatric hospitals paint their walls turquoise or other shades of light blue to calm their patients.

Turquoise is also closely related to water. This is where the shades aqua and aquamarine get their names. The Carribbean is often referred to as 'The Turquoise' because of the shallow waters that take on the color in sunlight.

http://smedia.vermotion.com/media/14106/resources/Caribbean.jpg

Yellow

Yellow. First thing that comes to my mind is sunshine. Which then leads me to happiness. So generally, yellow is a happy color. It is very pleasing and goes well with other colors. Like red, yellow does have conflicting meanings. Yellow is often associated with cowardice and deceit, the complete opposite of happiness and hope.

Yellow is also used as a warning because of the high visibility. It is also used as a hazardous color, to grab your attention. Workers wear yellow for safety, and yellow signs warn us of hazards on the road.


For years yellow ribbons were worn as a sign of hope as women waited from their men to come marching home from war. Today, they are still used to welcome home loved ones. Many familes put yellow ribbons on trees in front of their homes, to signify that they have a loved one in the armed forces.

Yellow has many different meanings in other cultures as well, and often meanings that we would find odd to relate to yellow. Yellow is for mourning in Egypt and actors of the Middle Ages wore yellow to signify the dead. Yet yellow has also represented courage in Japan, merchants in India, and peace.

My Favorite Color!

My favorite color is blue. Why? Honestly, I've always liked blue because I just never wanted to like all the girly colors like pink and purple. I enjoy any shade of blue. My room at home is a relaxing sky blue color, with white trim...it reminds me of clouds in the sky.


Blue is a very interesting color in that it is a symbol for two very opposing feelings. We think of depressed and sad as 'feeling blue.' But, when we think of a blue sky as being happy and relaxing, and without one, it's a bad day. Dark blues relate to the sadness of blue, and light blues relate to the happier blue feelings.


One of the most important resources on Earth, water, is blue. Well, that is the first color we relate to water...it is actually clear, but can often be brown or green. We wouldn't be able to live without water...our bodies are made up almost entirely of water.

Loyalty to Color

Through time, people have become loyal to colors that symbolize things. Schools, sports teams, organizations, and even countries adopt colors to be recongized by, and their followers become loyal to.

Many schools have 'school colors' which their sports teams adorn their uniforms with and interiors of buidings are often painted with these colors. Often, the color becomes part of the school mascot even....



Schools form student groups to support their sports teams, and will cover themselves head to toe in their school's colors....


Professional sports teams also are associated heavily with color. The Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and countless other teams include color in their name/mascot. At any sporting event, it is instantly known what team you are a fan of, based on the colors you are wearing.

Many organizations identify with colors, including labor organizations and even greek organizations. Having a color to bring people together helps to unify a group of people who otherwise may not have anything in common