When/Why did you become a Patriots fan

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.

Now you're starting to sound like a Packers fan.

In 1997 I went to a Packers-Patriots preseason game at Green Bay. Our seats were near these old codgers who complained through the whole damn game about how "now everyone wanted to come to the games" and all us new fans "didn't know how to act at a football game" and how we "weren't here for the glory years."

Finally I got sick of it and told one of them and said, "Sorry sir, I can't help it that I was born after Eisenhower was president."
 
LOL True...


No doubt the youngsters get sick of hearing about the good ol' days. I remember when I was a kid (yes, in the PRE-Kennedy era) I used to get sick of the old people talking about what it was like during the depression and how they had to walk to school for three miles in a raging bliZZard.

Yep, the generation gap. Bad news for the young ones is that there are SO many baby boomers that you'll be forced to hear it a LOT more of it than we had to endure...

Have y'all noticed how OLD everyone seems to look now days? LOL.... for every young kid I see, there are four grandmas standing in line ahead of me in the grocery store.

Ahhhhhhh... the graying of America.
 
early '70s....

when i first started watching football on tv and wanted to support the local team.
 
I was a Patriots fan by birthright (you try growing up as the youngest of five, four of us boys, and with Hawg as the oldest and NOT be one).

But the 1976 team put the team into my bloodstream for good.

There have been some great teams in my life...The Big, Bad Bruins, the 1975 Red Sox, the Super Bowl Champs x 3, too many Celtics teams to list...but nothing ever feels quite like your first love.

That team was coming off a 3-11 season and the crushing disappointment of JIm Plunkett's Patriots career and were going with the pre-folk hero Steve Grogan.

Without looking it up, I can tell you that they lost the first game. In Week 2, they beat perennial powerhouse Miami. Next, they shocked defending champ Pittsburgh, and the Patriot Ledger ran the classic headline "Grogan's Heroes." Next up was undefeated Oakland, and the Pats shocked the football world by annihilating them 48-17. I swear I'm not looking this up.

The 1976 Patriots went 11-3, won the Wild Card, and made their first ever NFL playoff appearancewhere they played the Raidahs, who lost only that one game all season.

And nothing makes you love a team more than having your heart broken when they play valiantly but get jobbed. Stupid Ben Dreith. :banghead:
 
ItsGood_ItsGood said:
I was a Patriots fan by birthright (you try growing up as the youngest of five, four of us boys, and with Hawg as the oldest and NOT be one).

But the 1976 team put the team into my bloodstream for good.

There have been some great teams in my life...The Big, Bad Bruins, the 1975 Red Sox, the Super Bowl Champs x 3, too many Celtics teams to list...but nothing ever feels quite like your first love.

That team was coming off a 3-11 season and the crushing disappointment of JIm Plunkett's Patriots career and were going with the pre-folk hero Steve Grogan.

Without looking it up, I can tell you that they lost the first game. In Week 2, they beat perennial powerhouse Miami. Next, they shocked defending champ Pittsburgh, and the Patriot Ledger ran the classic headline "Grogan's Heroes." Next up was undefeated Oakland, and the Pats shocked the football world by annihilating them 48-17. I swear I'm not looking this up.

The 1976 Patriots went 11-3, won the Wild Card, and made their first ever NFL playoff appearancewhere they played the Raidahs, who lost only that one game all season.

And nothing makes you love a team more than having your heart broken when they play valiantly but get jobbed. Stupid Ben Dreith. :banghead:

Without looking it up, I can tell you that they lost to the Colts (the eventual division winner) and we all thought it would be another lost season.

The biggest disappointment was that the '74 season start 6-1, the team looked like they had finally arrived. Then they collapsed and finished 7-7 followed by that 3-11 season. It looked like any hope from early '74 was gone.

The Miami win at home was memorable because the fans were waving white towels/shirts (anything white). That's what the Orange Bowl crowd did during Fin home games. The Pitt win was on the road and was a total shocker. I was at the Raiders game. Prior to Dreith, the biggest downer was losing the division to the Colts on a tie breaker.

Great memories (except for Dreith), IGIG.
 
I was born a Pats fan and I really got serious around 1992 when my dad got season Tics. I started going to about 3 games a year and as I got older I started going to more games. Since graduating from college my Dad has offered me one of his four season tickets and I have not hesitated at all.
 
Well, heres how. I played football waaayyyy back in the day, hell I was like 6 years old. And I played for two years, but I, like many other kids around here..Was never crazy about sports. Why would I wanna be outside getting sweaty when I can stay inside, feel good, and enjoy myself? Well, I had this uncle..He, along with my dad, was from Newton Mass. And my mother was from Southie..As you can tell, I have a butt load of Irish in me. My grandfather was Harold E. Clancy..A pretty famous name around Boston.

So, having a family from the area, ofcourse they were all Sox/Celts/Bruins/Pats fans. My uncle however, was a DIEHARD Patriots fan. No lie, every inch in this mans house was Patriots this, Patriots that. Being a Florida boy, I liked the Dolphins, but I never watched them..The only guy I knew was Dan Marino. I guess I liked them because they were a Florida team. And my uncle eventually got me into the Pats..And this story may sound bandwagon, but think what you will.

It was the hyped division matched up in 2001. The Patriots and Dolphins were playing eachother, and the Patriots who were suddenly wearing the magic slipper, deafeated the Dolphins soundly that day. My unlce talked me into becoming a Patriots fan that day, he offered me Patriots shirts, I mean man..This guy got me hooked right away. So my first game rooting for the Pats and they won. As the season went on, I watched..And eventually Iw as lucky enough that they were making a run that season. 2001 Was also right when I started playing football. So my football knowledge was few and far between, and needless to say I had alot to learn.

I used to think Offense had the defense's role, and that Defense wanted to score. Yes, I was that much of a geek. So, as time went on, playing football and watching it..I learned all about it. I remember watching Superbowl 36, me and my dad were out in the living room watching as Vinnaterri got ready to kick. My dad, being a Boston fan seeing it all, Buckner, Dent, etc. was scared to death. I will seriously never forget those few seconds in my life. There it was, the kick was up, EASY, right over the middle. And I felt like ice was on my back and I jumped up and raced to hug my dad..It was seriously a beutiful moment. We were screaming in disbelief.

Ever since then, I have grown so much into football, where it's an obsession of mine now. I seriously have a habbit making people Patriot fans. After that, I started watching the Sox in 03', had my heart broken by Boone, then saw them win it all in 04' And the Celtics, unlike quite a few I watch them, constantly cussing out the TV as they fail to make a simple rebound or shot. Or failure to defend. So like I said, my story seriously was a lucky timing for me. I cared about football before they won it all, and I have been like a crack addict since then.

2002, Heh..I remember it was so hard. I took so much shit from my friends. Seeing the run defense get run over like it did killed me. Seeing the Jets destroy the Pack broke my heart. But like I said, over time, from posting non stop on Patriot Planet and KFFL, my knowledge of the game grew big time. Well, thats my story atleast.
 
I've been a Pats fan as long as I can remember. I must have been about 8 years old. That was when I really got into sports with the Sox, Pats, Bruins and of course the C's.

The era that I started watching all of these teams included the likes of Ray Bourque, Larry Bird, Dewey Evans and Jim Rice. There were some very good years in Boston sports while I was growing up. But the Pats with the exception of 1985 always seemed to struggle.

When I started watching the Pats, it was guys like Steve Grogan, Stanley Morgan, John Hannah and Steve Nelson. Even though that team was awful more years than I can remember them being good, I was always a diehard. I would go to Foxboro any chance I got, even if it was in the pouring rain.

And while I don't miss the Ron Meyer, Dick Macpherson and Rod Rust years, I know there will come a time when this team will suck again. Hopefully I will be like 80 before it happens. But I will always get excited to watch the team on Sunday.
 
Bandwagoneer said:
It's beyond funny that someone became a Patriots fan because they hated "The Super Bowl Shuffle".

And don't forget Jim McMahon. :Lecture:


Seriously, you people have no idea. I mean, I know the song was played everywhere, but here in Chicagoland it was being played every 15 minutes on some radio station. You couldn't get away from it. It drove me absolutely nuts. :banghead:

I was left with no choice but to root for the Patriots, and hope they embarrassed the evil Bears. Unfortunately that didn't work out for me, and I'm the one who ended up eating crow. But hey, now all my friends can't say crap to me. :D
 
Wasn't there an "answer song" to that done by the Patriots or other people in New England? I remember seeing a video for it on a Super Bowl retrospective special on TV - the chorus went "New England, the Patriots... and WE!"

Speaking of McMahon, I took terrible taunting when he went in for Favre to do mop-up duty in Super Bowl XXXI...
 
I would say for me the day I started being a Pats fan was during elementary school. I remember vividly because of the slogan Squish the Fish and happened to have a class with someone that was a dolphins fan. I mean through all of the time all I kept hearing was Dan Marino this, Dan Marino that. We all knew what happened during the Orange Bowl, that the Pats squished the fish. I have been a fan ever since then.
 
I became a fan a few years back. Why... I became a fan of them because I wanted to move to Boston and still do, and plan to within the next couple of years.
 
Actually I didn't even know that New England had a pro football team until my 7th grade. I was 13 years old and Some of my buddies and I used to throw the pig skin around during breaks.

We would alternate being the QB because no one wanted to just run all the time, its funny looking back but the receivers would always run toward the defenders and then try and get away from them. :huh:

The Patriots were brought up during many of these scrimmages and we really thought we had a shot at beating them. But even if we lost it would be OK. At that time in my life I never really considered any other team as my favorite. It has always been the Patriots since my first breath.

My life seldom gives me opportunity to follow the antics of the team that closely, thats why this is my Patriots headquarters, update resource, and I enjoy the netiquette we share.

Thanks Planeteers for keeping me informed.
 
Well, I figured as a new member I should give a little bit of back history as to how in the world a kid from Kansas City (stuck and saddled with anything and everything Chiefs) could dare to become a fan of the greatest team in the world... so here goes.

Really, it's simple. I was watching one of those corny videotapes the NFL seemed to make every year- this one was called "NFL's Greatest Hits" and I think it still resides at my mother's house to this day- and they included some big hits made by Andre Tippett. I thought that guy was a beast, even at 10 years old, plus I liked the Pat Patriot logo. That started me in my Patriots fandom, but as was previously mentioned, Kansas City was not the place to learn more about them and the internet had yet to be unveiled to me. As such, I was stuck.

Flash to 1993, when the Patriots featured a new logo, Drew Bledsoe, and Bill Parcells. My dad (being from New York) was a big-time Tuna fan and as such, became a slight Pats follower. This also gave us a way to bond, cheering for the Patriots (and the Tuna). That was all I needed. Even after Parcells walked out on us in 97 to the Jets, I stayed true to the red, white, and blue. It was quite nice being the only one in my middle school that rooted for the Pats against the Packers, if only because I got to shove it in the faces of all the Chiefs fans there.

College has since beckoned, and while being trapped in small-town Emporia, KS (about 100 miles south of KC), I've seen my beloved Patriots go from doormats in 2000 to the Dynasty of the New Millenium! It's quite the pleasure to find such a badass website, and it's good to be here! GO PATS!
 
Cletusaurus said:
I was watching one of those corny videotapes the NFL seemed to make every year- this one was called "NFL's Greatest Hits" and I think it still resides at my mother's house to this day- and they included some big hits made by Andre Tippett. I thought that guy was a beast
Welcome to the Planet. Any fan of Andre Tippett is a friend of mine!

--James
 
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