By Elliott Bell

Have you ever taken a really solid shot to the nuts? I guess the girls can’t answer that one, but the fellas can chime in. I’m not talking about some lame hit to the groin that looks like it may hurt but really doesn’t and you carry on anyway just so everyone knows that you do indeed have a large package. No, I am talking about one of those holy crap, eye watering, loss of breath, direct hits that makes you wonder if you’ll ever be able to have kids in the future. You know the kind?

Now you know what it feels like to be a sports fan in the city of Philadelphia. One big kick in the crotch.

I was born in 1984. By 1986 I knew how to do all of the following:

1) Booo at any player in a Philly uniform who wasn’t giving 100 percent

2) Chant E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!!!

3) Find the best spot in public to urinate, but that was mostly due to the fact I was allowed to do it in my diaper. But don’t let that fool you, any Philly fan can find the best place for public urination at any age.

4) Learn that I am due for a lifetime of disappointment, which is a valuable lesson for a 2-year-old.

My pops might have dropped the ball in a lot of areas when it came to raising me as a son, but if there is one thing he did well – he taught me how to be a good fan.

Now about 21 years later, I’ve had enough heartache and heartbreak to last me a lifetime. I have seen great Philly teams crumble for no reason, I’ve seen great players die and I’ve seen terrible teams do even worse than anyone could have predicted. Oh there’s more. I’ve seen terrible players leave this town and have an all-star season in a new town, I’ve seen crushing defeat after crushing defeat and every time I feel like there is reason to have hope again, something reminds me that hope is the best we will ever have in this city.

And that is what sometimes the hardest to swallow. Hope rarely flickers in this city. When it does, come together and think that maybe this is the year we will win it all. In 2001, Allen Iverson led a bunch of no-names to the NBA Finals. As a city we were proud of the team, but saw little hope in winning against a Los Angeles Lakers team that didn’t lose once in the Western Conference playoffs. And what happened? Iverson goes ballistic in the first game and upsets the Lakers.

That’s like when a hot girl, who somehow also has a nice personality, goes over to the nerdy kid at the dance and talks to him for a few minutes because she feels bad that he is all alone. Yeah, that’s great for her, but the rest of the night he is going to stare at her and think that because she talked to him maybe he has this chance of touching her butt during a slow song later on. Damn that Jayne Allen, having to talk to me at the seventh grade social. Sorry.

Back to the point of this story. Just like that nerdy kid who had hope of great things to come, Philly fans continuously are let down. The Lakers won the series 4-1.

Some people say that we wouldn’t get hurt by our teams if we didn’t tie our emotions to them so closely. I’ve thought about that and to those people I say: You suck!

We are inexplicably close to our teams. As a city, we bond, and come together to form one unit with our teams. That is why we are so hard on them.

We demand a lot from them, but we give a lot to them. The fact remains that we identify with our teams more than any other city in this country. When the Eagles lose, we feel bad about ourselves, and when they win, we feel good about ourselves. It’s eerie, but intoxicating.

I consider myself to be a tangible definition of the Philadelphia sports fan, but I talked to some other true fans just to gauge my own thoughts with the rest of the Philly Nation. Incredibly, everyone said the same thing. When I asked them to describe what it’s like to be a fan in Philadelphia everyone just talked about how painful it is. My brother said it’s like cheering for Charlie Brown and Joe Shlabotnik. That’s one too many Peanuts references in a sentence for me, but it gets the point across. We know we are cheering for people who won’t succeed, but we cheer anyway.

After asking what it’s like to be a Philly fan, I asked one simple question. Do you enjoy it? No one hesitated for even a second, before saying quite simply – yes.

Even mother Bell, who really only likes players because they are good looking, or look like me, said she will always enjoy rooting for them, no matter how much pain it may bring.

All of this brings me up to this past Sunday. My arse of an editor demanded I talk about what happened in the Super Bowl to the Eagles and still have the column to him within 24 hours of the crushing defeat. But like a good writer – I oblige.

Anyway, yes, this past Sunday the Eagles took another step in proving that they can repeatedly break my heart, and I will still keep coming back. I’ve been avoiding all forms of media, and just trying not to think about it. It’s like when you have a girlfriend and she leaves you for another guy that you see around town all the time. And then one night you see them kiss and it just rips you up inside. (I really have to keep my own stories out of here I think). Well, that’s what it feels like to see the Patriots smiling and running around with their trophy.

Wow, how quickly 1000 words comes to an end. I have another 1000 left in me, so let’s just call this part one of a two part series. I would like to hear back from anyone on their thoughts about being an Eagles fan, or if you hate Eagles fans, write me and tell me why. I love adoring fan mail, or I can see myself liking it since no one has actually ever written me.

Ugh.

You can contact Elliott at [email protected].