Column: The Trials and Joys of Being a D.C. Sports Fan

As both the Capitals and the Wizards make less-than-promising starts to their sure-to-be-short playoff appearances, I once again find myself sinking into the bottomless pit of disappointment and dejection that I have become more than accustomed to in the past 22 years as a Washington, D.C. sports fan.

To pick those of you who are not familiar, Washington has four professional sports teams — the Redskins, Nationals, Capitals and Wizards (we’re not counting the MLS here).

None of those four teams have won a championship in their respective leagues since I have been alive. The last time any D.C. sports team won a championship was in 1992, when the Redskins won their third Super Bowl. The Capitals have never won a Stanley Cup, and the Nationals have yet to even appear at a World Series. The last time the Wizards won the finals was in 1978, when they were called the Bullets.

When counting for the cities across the country that, like D.C., have teams in the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA, there is no other city other than Minneapolis, which has a longer championship drought.

I point out all of this to say that it’s not easy to be a dedicated fan to any team, let alone four, that have responded so much opportunity in the playoffs with complete and unadulterated, paralyzing failure.

Still, I call myself a D.C. sports fan to this day, despite the tremendous temptation to jump ship and bandwagon with a winning program. With every playoff season, I watch along, hanging on by a thread of championship hope, only to see that hope be deflated like a soccer ball in a hydraulic press.

As I write this, I cannot help but to look back to the most bitter endings to D.C. sports during my lifetime: the 2012 NLDS, where the Nationals were one strike away from advancing to the NLCS against the Cardinals but blew it; the 2012 NFC Wild Card game, where RGIII tore his ACL at the end of a brutal loss to the Seahawks; last year’s NHL Eastern Conference second round, where the Capitals made a series comeback to force game seven only to be shutout and sent home.

At the very least, being a D.C. sports fan has taught me about loyalty and unconditional love; perhaps there are some life lessons in that. Being a sports fan to any losing program has given me an immeasurable amount of emotional durability. I am not quite sure if people who are not sports fans quite understand the duress of seeing something you love so dearly continuously let you down.

And like all fans, I know at the bottom of my heart that there is nothing I can personally do to fix this problem. I have found that in my life, I tend to be a very controlling person; I like to tackle problems on my own. But I cannot call up Bruce Allen and tell him what I think the Redskins should do in the upcoming draft (if you’re reading this, Bruce, we need a linebacker), so I am becoming increasingly aware of how difficult it is to internalize my teams’ playoff woes.

In this way and many others, attaching myself to D.C.’s losing sports program has shaped who I am today. Sure, being a fan has probably hardened me to the bitter sting of life’s disappointments, but it also has pushed me to be patient and not as susceptible to the various pitfalls of life.

I now truly know I can face any storm in my life because I have already endured loss in hardships in this cyclical and unforgiving world of sports fandom. It has given me a sense of brotherhood and family, where I can at least commune and fellowship with my fellow D.C. sports fans who feel the same blows that I do every year.

And still, after all that has happened, I linger on to a bit of hope yet again. Assuming I live a long and healthy life, I figure that I will experience one championship, that one of my teams will finally bring home a trophy to the district.

And if not, then I blame my parents, who chose to raise me up in a D.C. suburb rather than in Boston, Pittsburgh or somewhere else where championships are expected of their sports programs.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *