The Football Fan's Manifesto电子书

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

Article I: The Supremacy of Football

Section 1: Other Major Sports Are Inherently Inferior to Pro Football and Therefore Unworthy of Our Time

Section 2: A People’s History of Football Fanaticism

Section 3: The Football Fan Is the Next Evolution of Man

Article II: The Fundamentals of Fandom

Section 1: Pick a Team, Any Team. Just Pick One and Only One

Section 2: Who You Root for Defines Who You Are

Section 3: The Memory of Your Team’s Epic Playoff Loss Will Set the Tone for All Your Future Personal Failures

Clause A: The Most Epic Chokes

Section 4: Choose a Player to Idolize Based on His Carefully Crafted Public Persona

Section 5: Know Thine Enemies, So You Can Identify Them After Crushing Their Skulls into Powder

Section 6: Bandwagon Fans: Can’t Live with Them, Can’t Line Them Up and Melt Their Insides with a Flamethrower

Clause A: How to Identify a Bandwagon Fan

Section 7: Choose Your Friends Based on Football Allegiances—and Maybe Their Parent’s Beach House

Section 8: Learn to Deal with People Who Actively Dislike Sports While Somehow Resisting the Urge to Strangle Them

Article III: The Formative Years of Fandom

Section 1: Matriculate into College (So You Can Learn That Word Doesn’t Mean Advancing a Football)

Section 2: The Liberal Arts Agenda Against Fandom

Section 3: Attend a Game a Week and a Class Per Semester: A Fan’s Guide to Higher Education

Section 4: Befriend NFL Prospects Now, While They’ll Still Let You Do Their Homework for Them

Clause A: The Duties for the Aspiring Hanger-on

Section 5: Watch Football While Tripping Balls: Drugs and Gameday

Section 6: Countries Most Likely to Cease Being Useless and Catch Football Fever

Section 7: Land a Football-Related Job

Section 8: Root for Your Team from Afar

Article IV: The Two-Minute Driven Life

Section 1: You Can’t Have a Tailgate of One

Section 2: Make the Game Part of Your Game: Picking Up Women

Section 3: Convenient Conditioning for the Football Fatty

Section 4: The Diner Quiz For a Post-Post-Diner Generation

Clause A: The Football Manifesto Mate-Matching Metric

Section 5: The Obligatory Guidelines for Female Fans

Clause A: Ground Rules for Female Fans

Section 6: Vow to Have a Football-Themed Wedding

Section 7: Raise Your Kids to Root for Your Team Through Coercion

Section 8: Acceptable Levels of Involvement in Your Kid’s Pop Warner League

Section 9: Scenes from a Broken Fan Marriage

Section 10: Lord Your Personal Success Over Baseball Fans Because You Don’t Spend All Your Time Watching Baseball

Article V: Gameday Operating Procedure: THE GOP THAT WANTS YOU TO HAVE FUNS

Section 1: Flout the Fan Conduct Policy

Section 2: Personal Seat Licenses Are a Bigger Rip-off than Buying a Home

Section 3: Your New Pair of Underwear Is to Blame for a Ten-Loss Season

Section 4: Tailgating Is the Pregame Alcohol-Based Ritual of Kings

Clause A: Avoid Tailgating Scenesters

Clause B: Tailgating Grub: Meat, Meat, More Meat, Wash Down with Beer, Repeat with Meat

Section 5: Get Pumped for Victory in the Game You’re Not Playing

Section 6: The High Five Is an Intricate Art Not to Be Toyed With

Section 7: Like All Extreme Sports, Running onto the Playing Field Is Dumb and Wrong—and Irresistible

Section 8: The Challenge of the Superfans

Section 9: Gamble, Because of Course You’re Smarter than Vegas

Section 10: Probably Should’ve Known Before You Bought Those Season Tickets: Watching a Game at Home Is Far Better than the Stadium Experience

Article VI: The Fantasy Football Chapter (Now with Tear-Out Cheat Sheet!)

Section 1: Fantasy Baseball Is for Geeks but Fantasy Football Is for Men

Section 2: Know Your Fantasy League or Know Draft Defeat

Section 3: Naming Your Fantasy Team, or Which Anchorman Reference Shall You Go With?

Section 4: The Fantasy Draft Is the Only Time Being an Unrepentant Homer Doesn’t Help

Clause A: Draft Trash-Talk Tips

Section 5: Fantasy Football Magazines Are the Most Useless Thing You’ll Reflexively Purchase Each Year

Section 6: A Letter to Brian Westbrook Regarding His Questionable Playing Status for Sunday

Section 7: Issue Threats to People Who Veto Your Fantasy Trades

Article VII: A Fan for All Seasons

Section 1: Seventeen Weeks of Sweet Delusion

Section 2: Strategies for a Losing Season: Blame All Parties Involved

Section 3: Drink Deep of the Haterade, That Cool, Refreshing Drink

Section 4: When “Wait ‘Til Next Year” Is an Annual Mantra, or the Fan Bases of the Damned

Section 5: The Week Between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl Is the Tool of the Devil (as Well as the Networks, Which Are Run by the Devil)

Section 6: If You Need Don Cheadle to Motivate You for the Playoffs, You Aren’t a Fan

Section 7: Super Bowl Parties Are for Amateurs— but Still Worth It

Section 8: Celebrate a Title, Bitches!

Article VIII: Surviving The Endless off-Season

Section 1: Your End of the Year Denial Is So Strong You’ll Actually Watch a Part of the Pro Bowl

Section 2: Feign an Interest in Other Sports and Other People

Section 3: Oh, No! Your Favorite Player Left in Free Agency! Disown Him at Once!

Clause A: The Five Stages of Free Agent Dejection

Section 4: The Draft Is Excruciating, but in April You’ll Take Anything You Can Get

Clause A: The NFL Draft Drinking Game

Section 5: The Arena League and the CFL Are a Sickening Farce and Not Even the Good Kind of Sickening Farce

Section 6: Beware the Post-NBA Finals Misery Vortex

Section 7: Training Camp Is Miserable for the Athlete, Only Kind of Boring for You

Section 8: Observe Madden Day Like the National Holiday It Should Be

Section 9: Dupe Yourself into Thinking the Preseason Matters

Article IX: Take Fandom to Unhealthy Levels—then a Little Further

Section 1: Fandom on the Intarwebz!!11!

Section 2: Heed the Officially Licensed Section on NFL Apparel and Merchandise

Section 3: Dress Your Pet, Because They Can’t Tell You It’s Lame

Section 4: The Mystery of Trash-Talking

Clause A: The Laws of Trash-Talking

Section 5: “Can You Please Sign My Newborn?”: Autograph Hunting

Section 6: Pester God to Intercede on Your Team’s Behalf

Section 7: Fortify Your Conversations with the Power of Football Clichés

Section 8: Get Tat Up from the Mat Up

Article X: Death: Because only Al Davis can live Forever

Section 1: Retirement or “Which Team Do I Like, Again?”

Section 2: Your Team Relocated to Another City! Your Entire Life Was All for Naught!

Section 3: Buying a Team Means Buying the Affections of Millions, Even as You Screw Them

Section 4: Remain Die-hard Even When You’re About to Die

Section 5: To a Bears Fan Dying Young

Section 6: Hector Your Favorite Players into the Hall of Fame

Section 7: On Death and Deep-frying

Section 8: The Afterlife, or As It’s Known in Football-Speak, the Post-Life

Epilogue: This Book Gets Summ-ed Up! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap!

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher