The Football Fan's Manifesto
, by Tunison, Michael
- ISBN: 9780061735141 | 0061735140
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 1/1/2009
These are just the basics if you wish to be a True Football Fan. The full picture is much more complex and boozy. Thankfully, The Football fan's Manifesto is your very own playbook to the strict rules and by laws that must be scrupulously observed. After all, trash-talking is an intricate science and running onto the field a dangerous but irresistible pursuit. There are many lessons to be learned, especially that choosing a favorite team to live and die with is not a choice made easily: It's the most important decision of your life!
| Acknowledgments | p. xv |
| The Supremacy of Football | p. 1 |
| Other Major Sports Are Inherently Inferior to Pro Football and Therefore Unworthy of Our Time | p. 1 |
| A People's History of Football Fanaticism | p. 7 |
| The Football Fan Is the Next Evolution of Man | p. 11 |
| The Fundamentals of Fandom | p. 17 |
| Pick a Team, Any Team. Just Pick One and Only One | p. 17 |
| Who You Root for Defines Who You Are | p. 19 |
| The Memory of Your Team's Epic Playoff Loss Will Set the Tone for All Your Future Personal Failures | p. 29 |
| The Most Epic Chokes | p. 30 |
| Choose a Player to Idolize Based on His Carefully Crafted Public Persona | p. 34 |
| Know Thine Enemies, So You Can Identify Them After Crushing Their Skulls into Powder | p. 40 |
| Bandwagon Fans: Can't Live with Them, Can't Line Them Up and Melt Their Insides with a Flamethrower | p. 46 |
| How to Identify a Bandwagon Fan | p. 47 |
| Choose Your Friends Based on Football Allegiances-and Maybe Their Parent's Beach House | p. 50 |
| Learn to Deal With People Who Actively Dislike Sports While Somehow Resisting the Urge to Strangle Them | p. 53 |
| The Formative Years Of Fandom | p. 57 |
| Matriculate into College (So You Can Learn That Word Doesn't Mean Advancing a Football) | p. 57 |
| The Liberal Arts Agenda Against Fandom | p. 59 |
| Attend a Game a Week and a Class Per Semester: A Fan's Guide to Higher Education | p. 61 |
| Befriend NFL Prospects Now, While They'll Still Let You Do Their Homework for Them | p. 62 |
| The Duties for the Aspiring Hanger-on | p. 63 |
| Watch Football While Tripping Balls: Drugs and Gameday | p. 65 |
| Countries Most Likely to Cease Being Useless and Catch Football Fever | p. 68 |
| Land a Football-Related Job | p. 74 |
| Root for Your Team from Afar | p. 78 |
| The Two-Minute Driven Life | p. 83 |
| You Can't Have a Tailgate of One | p. 83 |
| Make the Game Part of Your Game: Picking Up Women | p. 85 |
| Convenient Conditioning for the Football Fatty | p. 87 |
| The Diner Quiz For a Post-Post-Diner Generation | p. 90 |
| The Football Manifesto Mate-Matching Metric | p. 91 |
| The Obligatory Guidelines for Female Fans | p. 94 |
| Ground Rules for Female Fans | p. 96 |
| Vow to Have a Football-Themed Wedding | p. 97 |
| Raise Your Kids to Root for Your Team Through Coercion | p. 102 |
| Acceptable Levels of Involvement in Your Kid's Pop Warner League | p. 104 |
| Scenes from a Broken Fan Marriage | p. 106 |
| Lord Your Personal Success Over Baseball Fans Because You Don't Spend All Your Time Watching Baseball | p. 109 |
| Gameday Operating Procedure: The Gop That Wants You to Have Fun | p. 113 |
| Flout the Fan Conduct Policy | p. 113 |
| Personal Seat Licenses Are a Bigger Rip-off than Buying a Home | p. 116 |
| Your New Pair of Underwear Is to Blame for a Ten-Loss Season | p. 119 |
| Tailgating Is the Pregame Alcohol-Based Ritual of Kings | p. 123 |
| Avoid Tailgating Scenesters | p. 125 |
| Tailgating Grub: Meat, Meat, More Meat, Wash Down with Beer, Repeat with Meat | p. 127 |
| Get Pumped for Victory in the Game You're Not Playing | p. 128 |
| The High Five Is an Intricate Art Not to Be Toyed With | p. 131 |
| Like All Extreme Sports, Running onto the Playing Field Is Dumb and Wrong-and Irresistible | p. 135 |
| The Challenge of the Superfans | p. 138 |
| Gamble, Because of Course You're Smarter than Vegas | p. 145 |
| Probably Should've Known Before You Bought Those Season Tickets: Watching a Game at Home Is Far Better than the Stadium Experience | p. 147 |
| The Fantasy Football Chapter (Now With Tear-Out Cheat Sheet!) | p. 153 |
| Fantasy Baseball Is for Geeks but Fantasy Football Is for Men | p. 153 |
| Know Your Fantasy League or Know Draft Defeat | p. 156 |
| Naming Your Fantasy Team, or Which Anchorman Reference Shall You Go With? | p. 161 |
| The Fantasy Draft Is the Only Time Being an Unrepentant Homer Doesn't Help | p. 163 |
| Draft Trash-Talk Tips | p. 165 |
| Fantasy Football Magazines Are the Most Useless Thing You'll Reflexively Purchase Each Year | p. 166 |
| A Letter to Brian Westbrook Regarding His Questionable Playing Status for Sunday | p. 169 |
| Issue Threats to People Who Veto Your Fantasy Trades | p. 172 |
| A Fan For All Seasons | p. 179 |
| Seventeen Weeks of Sweet Delusion | p. 179 |
| Strategies for a Losing Season: Blame All Parties Involved | p. 185 |
| Drink Deep of the Haterade, That Cool, Refreshing Drink | p. 187 |
| When "Wait 'Til Next Year" Is an Annual Mantra, or the Fan Bases of the Damned | p. 191 |
| 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) | p. 196 |
| If You Need Don Cheadle to Motivate You for the Playoffs, You Aren't a Fan | p. 200 |
| Super Bowl Parties Are for Amateurs but Still Worth It | p. 203 |
| Celebrate a Title, Bitches! | p. 206 |
| Surviving the Endless Off-Season | p. 213 |
| Your End of the Year Denial Is So Strong You'll Actually Watch a Part of the Pro Bowl | p. 213 |
| Feign an Interest in Other Sports and Other People | p. 217 |
| Oh, No! Your Favorite Player Left in Free Agency! Disown Him at Once! | p. 220 |
| The Five Stages of Free Agent Dejection | p. 222 |
| The Draft is Excruciating, but in April You'll Take Anything You Can Get | p. 224 |
| The NFL Draft Drinking Game | p. 225 |
| The Arena League and the CFL Are a Sickening Farce and Not Even the Good Kind of Sickening Farce | p. 228 |
| Beware the Post-NBA Finals Misery Vortex | p. 232 |
| Training Camp Is Miserable for the Athlete, Only Kind of Boring for You | p. 234 |
| Observe Madden Day Like the National Holiday It Should Be | p. 236 |
| Dupe Yourself into Thinking the Preseason Matters | p. 240 |
| Take Fandom to Unhealthy Levels-Then a Little Further | p. 247 |
| Fandom on the Intarwebz!!11! | p. 247 |
| Heed the Officially Licensed Section on NFL Apparel and Merchandise | p. 253 |
| Dress Your Pet, Because They Can't Tell You It's Lame | p. 259 |
| The Mystery of Trash-Talking | p. 262 |
| The Laws of Trash-Talking | p. 264 |
| "Can You Please Sign My Newborn?": Autograph Hunting | p. 267 |
| Pester God to Intercede on Your Team's Behalf | p. 269 |
| Fortify Your Conversations with the Power of Football Clichés | p. 271 |
| Get Tat Up from the Mat Up | p. 279 |
| Death: Because Only Al Davis Can Live Forever | p. 287 |
| Retirement or "Which Team Do I Like, Again?" | p. 287 |
| Your Team Relocated to Another City! Your Entire Life Was All for Naught! | p. 289 |
| Buying a Team Means Buying the Affections of Millions, Even as You Screw Them | p. 293 |
| Remain Die-hard Even When You're About to Die | p. 299 |
| To a Bears Fan Dying Young | p. 301 |
| Hector Your Favorite Players into the Hall of Fame | p. 304 |
| On Death and Deep-frying | p. 307 |
| The Afterlife, or As It's Known in Football-Speak, the Post-Life | p. 310 |
| Epilogue: This Book Gets Summ-ed Up! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap! | p. 313 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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