Die-hard Hoosier basketball fans are raised to not only bleed cream and crimson day-in and day-out, but also to live every day with a burning hatred against the university’s main rivals, Purdue and Kentucky.
What happens when you’re all but forced to cross one of the fanatic’s unwritten rules and root for one of your rival’s main contributors?
While I was not raised a Hoosier fan, I did grow up rooting obsessively for the Chicago White Sox which, similar to the Hoosiers, have a rival that all big-time fans root against no matter what – their cross-town rival Chicago Cubs, of course.
I imagine that for fans of the die-hard variety, the patterns of fandom take a similar path: when you’re young, you root cheer relentlessly against the rival, even when the game has absolutely no effect on your team. And say your team lost a disappointing game one day; it wasn’t nearly as bad if that team you hated lost, right?
Well I’ve grown up and matured greatly as a consumer of sports, so my stance is different now. No longer do I worry about the outcome of a game between the lowly Cubs and Astros, or as a matter of fact how the Boilermaker or Wildcats fare in most of their games, given it doesn’t affect our beloved Hoosiers. And throughout that maturation process, I’ve always wondered why we hate those rivals. I mean, is it deeper than the fact that we just love to hate certain teams? This really got me wondering, and as it turns out, the NBA draft may have helped me find an answer.
What happens when you’re all but forced to cross one of the fanatic’s unwritten rules and root for one of your rival’s main contributors?
Teague’s presence on the Bulls creates a dilemma.
Image courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
The Draft presented one of these situations for myself and many other Chicago-native Hoosiers, when the Bulls selected former Kentucky point guard Marquis Teague, we were at a crossroads with our fandom. Last year, we despised Teague for choosing to play at UK despite coming out of Indianapolis, but this year, we’re supposed to embrace him as one of our own? It’s a peculiar dilemma.
The Chicago Bulls are in an interesting position this offseason, coming off of two consecutive 1st place regular season finishes in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. But with MVP Derrick Rose out what will likely be at least half of the season, All Star Luol Deng’s status in question with a wrist injury, and head coach Tom Thibodeau’s contract situation in flux, many surrounding the team have already dubbed next year to be one that fans should not expect much from.
Obviously, not much was expected to come from Chicago’s 29th overall selection, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to have an interesting pick.
So with the Bulls having an open spot at point guard for what will likely be at least half of the season as Derrick Rose rehabs, Teague will get a good deal of playing time, whether he starts or not. And to be honest, I think it will be pretty difficult to fully support him.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll always pull for Teague to be successful and help them win games; I’m never going to root against any of his shots from going in. However, when in discussion with any other Bulls fans, discussing what we like about the team and what is driving us insane with frustration, I can’t see myself every raving about Teague or being a full-on fan of him in any way. I’ll appreciate everything he gives to the team, pull for him to help the team win, but I just won’t ever be a true Teague fan; he’ll be on a very short leash for me.
However, I understand some of you may find this to be strange, and I do too somewhat. So, I tried to look deeper and really figure out why I feel this way. Is it just the UK factor? Do die hard fans like myself really just have that deep-seated hatred ingrained in their heads even when the collegiate portions of their careers are in the past?
To figure this out, I asked a couple of my buddies, both lifelong Hoosier basketball fans from the Chicago land area. I asked them if they could give me something brief about the rivalry and hatred for Kentucky. I kept that question pretty brief and open-ended on purpose, and here’s what I got:
Some dislike John Calipari’s program building approach.
Image courtesy of Vaught’sViews.com
Robbie Grossi: “Kentucky is the Miami Heat of college sports. I don’t feel like they’ve done it the right way. Considering the shadiness surrounding Coach John Calipari and his players, it is disappointing that they won the NCAA Championship last year. It’s disappointing that the weak Kentucky fans get to see a banner raised for that team.â€
Ben GiaQuinta: “Growing up, I always hated UK. But to be honest, I didn’t quite hate them as much as the likes of the Green Bay Packers, Ohio State Buckeyes, or Chicago White Sox due to my other sports allegiances. But recently, the arrogance of the program: the fans, and most of all Coach Cal, it’s almost impossible not to despise everything about the entire program, and heck, state, for that matter.
What I got from those quotes is that it is indeed Teague’s affiliation with the University of Kentucky that will hold me back from being a big fan of his, despite him joining my beloved Chicago Bulls.
Now, if I were to take the anyone’s opinion to heart about anything Hoosiers-related, it’d be from these guys. They’ve followed the team obsessively since they were young. So it got me thinking, do we really hate the University of Kentucky that much? Or do we just hate a particular coach’s program that just so happens to be at a rival school?
Well, remember a few years back when a certain Derrick Rose played for Coach Cal? Well, a few All-Star Game appearances and an NBA MVP Award later, we (Hoosier/Bulls fans) all love Rose. None of us think any less of him because he played for a Calipari team that was indeed “shady,†as lots of scandals surfaced after Rose went to the Bulls. Sure, D. Rose is from Chicago and Teague is an Indy kid that left the area for UK, but it’s not like we’re much bigger fans of any UK players from different states.
So let’s recap what we’ve got:
1.)Â I will find it hard to root for former Kentucky PG Marquis Teague on the Chicago Bulls due to my loyalty to the Indiana University basketball program and hatred of UK.
Rose played for Calipari, but that hasn’t affected his brand.
Image courtesy of A-Game Magazine.
2.) Based on responses from lifelong fans of both the Indiana Hoosiers, the main reason, currently, that we don’t like Kentucky is because of the scandalous program led by Coach Cal. However, we root relentlessly for Derrick Rose who was involved with one of his teams, as well.
Through writing this, I learned a lot, and I’m sure you now know where I’m going with this. Despite to the evidence above, the reason that we despise Kentucky so much is not Coach Cal. The coach and his reputation are not the reason why we don’t like them; they’re just our justification for feeling that way in the current day.
I mean, rivalries exist solely because people like to argue: they enjoy the debate and bragging rights that come with it, right? So, when looking for support for your side of the debate, you look for evidence that makes you feel that you have the upper hand. For IU fans, it’s “your wins will be vacated soon,†and for UK fans it’s “well you guys haven’t really done anything in ten years.†Are either of those statements really relevant? No, they’re not. I mean as far as we know, UK’s recent championship will not be vacated, and the last ten years don’t really matter for IU anymore, considering a new chapter has begun.
So after all that digging and deeper thought, we get to the answer: we don’t like Kentucky because…well, we just don’t. They’re in the SEC, a different state, and there aren’t any scheduled games between the two schools for the foreseeable future. If and when Coach Cal moves on, we’ll still hate them just as much, even if he may be the single biggest reason we don’t like UK right now.
So Wildcats, we just don’t like you, we enjoy disliking you. And to us, the only Indiana vs. Kentucky game that mattered last year was on December 10th.
