When/Why did you become a Patriots fan

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I wanted to be the next John Hannah and that brought me to the local team the Pats. I even tried his turtle block with your head in your shoulder pads and explode your neck as you plant it into the chest of the defender, I couldn't move my neck for a few days but thought it was the best pancake block an 11 year old playing with kids 2 years older ever did.

Started going to games as part of the Family thing to do(35 male cousins all played various levels) withmy 3 brothers, my uncle, who was like my dad after the parents split, and his 6 Boys and we would come home and play all week beating the living @#$* out of each other especially at family pick up games of touch turned tackle.

I started with 6 seasons tickets with my little brother and 3 friends and have continued for a years.

I love football, any level, and really enjoy the whole sunday NFL experience that I have turned my Wife onto and hopefully my children in the future. My son is 2 and already wraps his arms when taking down his sister or the poor dog. Will get upset when I take of his "ball game" shirt off and he watches the games with me when they are away yelling at the TV when I do.

I later found out my dad, who now lives with me, was a stud in highschool, and I knew 4 of my mothers 5 Brothers were all studs, with 2 being the full page story in the Boston papers during the late 40's - early 50's for the athletic talent.


sports were just always part of our life in my house, playing or watching.
 
I became a fan the season when we one our 1st super bowl in the dynasty. It was 4 games into the season and bledose was done. I wouldn't think of myself as a bandwagoner cause I had no idea they would win the super bowl.
 
Always have been. I'm pretty much a hometown team guy. I root for the Pats, Bruins, Sox. (No I didn't forget the Celts. Basketball just flat out sucks now.)
 
I'm a local Boston guy so I'm into the Sox & local teams, but my love for the Pats is in my blood - inherited it from my Dad ...

He's been with the Pats since Day 1. In '63, the Pats had to win a tiebreaker against Buffalo to go to the AFL Championship game - The game wasn't televised in the Boston area but I guess was televised in upstate NY. So he drives with my uncle to NY and rents a motel room so they can watch the game.

In '76, at 11 yrs. old, was the first time I got into the Pats. I rode the wave until the BS roughing the passer call. In '78, dad scores a couple of tix and takes me to the Pats' first playoff game in Foxboro (but it's a blowout loss to the Oilers).

In the 80's, the Pats typically didn't sell out their home games, so they were blacked out in Boston area. My dad and I would ride up to my uncle's house up in Salisbury (northern MA) to watch the game on a snowy signal from a NH station.

Pre-Parcells, we'd go to a sports bar that had satellite tv so we could watch the home games that were blacked out. In Drew's rookie season, I remember us going wild in that sports bar when Drew threw a TD pass in OT to beat the Phins to end the season on a 4-game winning streak and knock the Phins from the playoffs.

Just about every Pats game for the past thirty years has been a father/son event for me. Now, it's become a father, son, grandson event (although my son at 8 yrs. old thinks the Patriots are supposed to win the SB every year!)

Anyway, the best was SB 36. I was in my 30's and I'm with my Dad watching the SB. We sat through the two prior SB losses. Now, Tebucky's TD return gets called back, Rams score, then score again to tie the game. Brady goes on his 2 minute drive, and Vinatieri runs on the field.

Right then, my mom walks in front of the TV and Dad says: "Get out of the way, they're about to break my heart again!"

Paxton Snaps, Walton Holds, Vinatieri Kicks ... It's Gooood!!!

Dad cries ... I cry ...

That's why I'm a Pats fan
 
My dad had season tix since I was a little'un, so it was all I knew until about 85 when he had to give them up. O course, we all know how that season went. qI've been a fan through thick and thin. Dad and I watched the first SB win in a bar/ restaurant in Florida the year after I moved down here, and returned for the Panthers. I was worried they'd lose the Eagles game because we wouldn't be able to be at the bar. I realized that the superstition was unfounded.
 
I've been a fan since I can remember. Always wanted to do what my older brothers did so I watched the games with them. Then when I got older and understood the game I loved it!

Even when they weren't so good I still loved em because I am a New England girl and no other team would or will ever be better in my eyes. No matter where the Patriots are 20 years from now.


:patriots: :Redsox:
 
cadmonkey said:
I became a Patriots fan on February 3, 2002 after Adam V kicked the game winning field goal. ROFL

Well, someone had to say it!!!!!!
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In all actuality I didn't like the Pats when I was young, all that losing killed me. It killed me because I really wanted to like them. I became a fan around 91-92.........the Begining of the Bledsoe era.

I've been a fan ever since.
 
cadmonkey said:
I became a fan around 91-92.........the Begining of the Bledsoe era.

I've been a fan ever since.
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I think this might be the case for a lot of fans, sucess brings the fans and a lot remain fans.
 
I've been a fan since my junior year in High School. Up till then I flipped between the Rams (loved watching Roman Gabriel) and the Vikings (also loved watching Fran Tarkenton scramble around). I didn't even know the Patriots existed, and I lived about 20 minutes from Foxborough.

Didn't believe it when a friend told me we had a local pro team - I mean, NO ONE in my town ever talked about the Patriots.

But, I went to a game (against the Jets) & they were the home town team from that point on. Lost track of the team some years when I was overseas, but they were still my team.
 
mikiemo83 said:
I think this might be the case for a lot of fans, sucess brings the fans and a lot remain fans.
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It wasn't the sucsess that brought me to them. I was young in 91, just 13 years old, having been scared off by the Patriots because of their Super Bowl XX performance when I was 7 years old.

I watched it with my father and grandfather, they became so angry with that team on that day, that I became very resentful of the Pats for years. Things happened that day that I don't like to talk about, but I hated them for making my dad and grandfather do the things that they did.

I started watching them in the 1-15 season and thought, "What a way to start over, 1-15 is close enough to 0-16, I'll consder the slate clean."

I've been hooked ever since.
 
I have put a lot of thought into it and there were two basic reasons.

First, because I was a fat little kid and second, that Tommy Knowell got an old Philadelphia Eagles helmet and a set of shoulder pads.

Of course, his little brother and I borrowed the equipment and I discovered that while I couldn't outrun any of my friends-- I could knock them down. I decided that I liked football.

Soon thereafter my father started watching an AFL playoff game in, I think 1964, between the Bills and Pats and I was fascinated by the fact that they played in the snow, the two huge fullbacks in the persons of Jim Nance (us) and Cookie Gilchrist (Bills) and yes, the violence.

I couldn't believe the power of these two guys and related them to the Fantastic Four's Ben Richards AKA The Thing vs. The Incredible Hulk. They scared me and I liked it.

My father wasn't a huge fan as far as I knew, but really liked Crazy Larry Eisenhauer and his lack of NFL/NY Giants predjudice probably allowed me to adopt the Pats as my team which I did from that point on.

It was tough to follow them back then but I watched every game I could and collected cards exactly like the ones Annihilus has featured on the memorabilia page. I pored over the Sports pages and read everything I could about the team and this was when I was approximately 8 years old.

I finally went to my first two games at Harvard Stadium in 1970 back when the Pats were the bastard stepchildren of the entire newly-merged NFL. We weren't any good but, that didn't matter to me much, because they were always my team and I have never wavered for a minute.

When I was about 14 I used to call up a Sports talk show that was hosted by Pats cornerback Darryl Johnson. I told him to watch out for a rookie guard named Sam Adams. Johnson laughed at me then but, who's laughing now? Adams is on the Pats all-time team.

Following Pats football is the one constant in my life.

People come and go, I've changed locations a half dozen times but, from the time I was a porky kid, through adolescence, the drug days as a teenager and as an adult my addiction to Patriots football has been the one constant no matter how much people used to laugh at me back when we sucked as a team.

I could go on longer but, I've said enough.

I love the Pats and always have.
 
Since the year starting when they made their 2nd Super Bowl in 1996 where the immortal Max Lane played a game which will go down in the history books as a great "cardboard-like" performance against Reggie White.


I've always been abig Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy fan.
 
I know a few guys that actually purchased a new TV and after the XX superbowl one put his foot into the screen, his second time the first was te Radiers/ hamilton game.

What I meant was with Bledsoe and Parcels came coverage in a positive light, they were no longer overshadowed by the other 3 teams in town and actually got coverage. A lot of games were not on TV and as a kid how else can you watch them. Parcels shows up and TV helped develope the addiction of the fans.

Yes, a lot of "fans"started to watch because of the success, just like they went to the Celtics in the 80's, the Bruins in the 70's or the Sox of "67 but the real fans remained passionate about their Team despite the 1 and 15 season.

I was at the Radiers game in foxboro in 1978 as a 12 year old with my Brother and his friends but I had an onterest prior to that and that only cemented my desire to follow them.
 
Oh geez, I gotta go through this again?

Wisconsin-born, Wisconsin-raised. My earliest memories are from the early 1980s, when the Packers were lucky to make .500 in a season. Yet even then, the Packers were everything football in my family. It wasn't easy being a GB fan in those days, and a fair number of my people in my generation defected to be Vikings fans or Cowboys fans or whatever team was good in those days.

As grade school went on, I lost interest in football. I didn't even watch the Super Bowl. I don't know why.

It wasn't until my senior year of high school that I started getting interested in football again, and I don't even know why I did, I just did. The following fall I started college, and EVERYONE watched the Packers on Sunday. It was just what you did. And I really got into football again, although the only team that interested me yet was the Packers.

And yet...

As the year wore on, I noticed a gnawing desire to find something to set myself apart from my peers. I wanted to be different, but not that different - i.e. I wasn't going to turn into a hippie like a lot of guys on campus. I wanted to be a nonconforming conformist, dig?

I took my example from two of my cousins. Their dad is an unshakable Green Bay fan, yet his two sons are fans of other teams - one likes the Steelers, the other the Rams. How it happened was they were watching Super Bowl XIV, and one decided he liked the "Steel Curtain" Steelers, and his brother, out of spite, started rooting for the Rams.

I decided that I, too, should have a different team to root for. However, I was still too much of a Packer fan to turn my back on them, so I decided to have a "second favorite" team. Someone I could root for, catch one of their games now and then, and just kinda follow in the background while all everyone else could talk about was the Packers.

But who? I considered a number of teams - the Rams, the Buccaneers, the Eagles, the Chiefs, the Giants, even the Jets, and I nearly picked the Seahawks. Instead, I picked the New England Patriots. Why?

Well, first I thought it was neat that, through their name, they represented a region rather than just a single city or state. Now of course, many NFL teams have followings outside the specific city in their name, but only the Patriots refer to themselves that way.

Second, I had always wanted to visit Boston. I thought it was a great city just from seeing it in the background of the TV series Spenser: For Hire , which I used to watch all the time.

Third, I had an affection for the region because I enjoy Stephen King's books.

Fourth, I particularly wanted a team in the AFC, since I thought it was really looked down upon compared to the NFC (which, at the time, it definitely was.)

Fifth, I just plain liked the colors.

The following summer, I bought my first Patriots hat - at a store in San Antonio, Texas.

Eventually came the inevitable question - "So who ya gonna root for if the Packers play the Patriots in the Super Bowl?"

"Yeah right," I said, "like THAT will ever happen."

Well, when it DID happen less than two years later, I tried to root for both teams. It didn't work.

But after Green Bay won Super Bowl XXXI, I found myself less and less interested in the Packers and more and more interested in the Patriots. I guess it was that Green Bay had made it all the way, so I didn't feel it was as hard to stick with them.

In fact, the first regular season NFL game I ever went to was a Patriots game (against the Vikings at Minnesota) on Nov. 2, 1997.

And, over time, New England just became my "number one" team. Today I hardly even follow the Packers.

Wow, huh?
 
I was 16, and it was a snowy Sunday with nothing much on, so I decided to watch a football game. Surprisingly, it was very easy to catch on, in regards to the downs, yardage, etc.. I was hooked on the Pats. My husband than boyfriend, for my eighteenth birthday took me to Sullivan Stadium on Dec. 14th, to celebrate my birthday. I froze my ass off, but I loved it. I've lived through the good and the bad, and their are times that I have to leave the room when the points are close, and the flashbacks to the old Pats subconsciously come through. I know it's different now, but after all those years of close losses, I think I've been trained like Pavlov's dogs, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The Pats have and always will be number 1 with me.
 
Sounds a lot like my story. 9 years old in 1992, my family wasn't particularly into football. Turned on the TV one Sunday afternoon and a Pats-Falcons game was on. I figured, hey, New England's right next door to here, why not pull for them? The team got blown away as I recall, something like 24-0, but I didn't care. I came back to watch the next week's game. And the one after that. And so on.

Within 2 years I was a full-fleged fanatic. Look what I've become :)

JPK
 
Hawg73 said:
I have put a lot of thought into it and there were two basic reasons.

First, because I was a fat little kid and second, that Tommy Knowell got an old Philadelphia Eagles helmet and a set of shoulder pads.

Of course, his little brother and I borrowed the equipment and I discovered that while I couldn't outrun any of my friends-- I could knock them down. I decided that I liked football.

Soon thereafter my father started watching an AFL playoff game in, I think 1964, between the Bills and Pats and I was fascinated by the fact that they played in the snow, the two huge fullbacks in the persons of Jim Nance (us) and Cookie Gilchrist (Bills) and yes, the violence.

I couldn't believe the power of these two guys and related them to the Fantastic Four's Ben Richards AKA The Thing vs. The Incredible Hulk. They scared me and I liked it.

My father wasn't a huge fan as far as I knew, but really liked Crazy Larry Eisenhauer and his lack of NFL/NY Giants predjudice probably allowed me to adopt the Pats as my team which I did from that point on.

It was tough to follow them back then but I watched every game I could and collected cards exactly like the ones Annihilus has featured on the memorabilia page. I pored over the Sports pages and read everything I could about the team and this was when I was approximately 8 years old.

I finally went to my first two games at Harvard Stadium in 1970 back when the Pats were the bastard stepchildren of the entire newly-merged NFL. We weren't any good but, that didn't matter to me much, because they were always my team and I have never wavered for a minute.

When I was about 14 I used to call up a Sports talk show that was hosted by Pats cornerback Darryl Johnson. I told him to watch out for a rookie guard named Sam Adams. Johnson laughed at me then but, who's laughing now? Adams is on the Pats all-time team.

Following Pats football is the one constant in my life.

People come and go, I've changed locations a half dozen times but, from the time I was a porky kid, through adolescence, the drug days as a teenager and as an adult my addiction to Patriots football has been the one constant no matter how much people used to laugh at me back when we sucked as a team.

I could go on longer but, I've said enough.

I love the Pats and always have.
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Must be that's what we have in common, Hawgie. At least YOU understand that I will NEVER lose my passion as a BILLS fan... it's been the one constant in my life (unless of course they move the team)...

I still cling to the hope that they will hoist one Lombardi before I die. And you think YOU had it tough during the "tough years". Try living through four SB losses and still hold your head up high.

You have to REALLY show some strength of character to endure what BILLS fans who have stuck by their team since 59-60 have had to endure.
 
wyobilzfan said:
You have to REALLY show some strength of character to endure what BILLS fans who have stuck by their team since 59-60 have had to endure.
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Hey if you're going back to the early 60's, at least the Bills won a couple of AFL championships back in the day. That's more than the Pats could say until 2001.

Hell, up until 1999, Buffalo had appeared in 6 championship games to the Pats 2 (with a better winning percentage: 33% to 0%).

He didn't look these up, but Annihilus believes these stats are correct. Annihilus wonders what the combined overall win-loss record for our two clubs is (you know - to garner misery factor bragging rights).

Of course, we all know who the more miserable fans are these days. :cool:
 
The misery index in Buffalo is off the Richter scale these days, no matter what the overall record is between our two rival clubs.

I must say that I was very glad when realignment occurred that the BILLS were left to fight with the PhinZ, Patriots, and Jests. It would be unthinkable to break up our good ol' AFL family.

And now the ties (and brotherly like resentment) run even deeper since you got the best of us with Dreadslow. Milloy.... I think he had proven his worth to our club, so I'll call that one a draw.

My jollies are coming from the overcrowded sandbar these days, where the PHINz fans are living in dreamland with their savior Nicky and the return of the bongmeister. Our DOLLy trolls are cracking me up.


Probably the only group of fans that make me laugh harder these days are the CowGirls. Our neighbors across the road had a BBQ with family visiting from Texas. This kid walks by me with a CowGirl jersey on and as LOUD and ROWDY as I can be I shrieked "BLEW DREADSLOW" and started ROLLING on the grass laughing hysterically. Poor kid was horrified.

So was my husband :D
 
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