Most people in Mississippi grew up favoring either Ole Miss or Mississippi State. College athletics are huge in Mississippi, as well as other neighboring states, because there are no professional teams in the state.
When it comes to professional teams, kids normally grow up rooting for the teams their parents did or the team that drafted their favorite player.
The state is littered with New Orleans Saints fans and Atlanta Braves fans (due to proximity) and New York Giants fans and new Dallas quarterback fans(due to Ole Miss/State players drafted to the teams).
But what do you do when you want to follow a sport that is in an entirely different realm, one that our parents do not follow, one that isn’t a couple of hours away?
That’s exactly the position I found myself in last summer when I decided that I wanted to become a soccer fan.
Now, I plan on becoming a fan of Atlanta’s soccer team here in the good ole US of A in the MLS, but that team will not start competition until next year, and I did not want to wait that long.
And besides, I wanted to follow one of the best leagues in the world, the English Premier League.
Once you pick a team, it is yours forever. That’s the rule.
So, I began to do some research.
The first rule of picking a new team in a sport that is new to you is that you do not want to be a front-runner.
Nobody likes the new Golden State fans or the brand new Denver Broncos fans.
That immediately ruled out clubs like Chelsea (reigning champion), Manchester City, and the ever-popular Manchester United.
The second rule is not picking one of the absolute bottom teams because in the Premier League, the three teams with the worst records are relegated, meaning they have to drop down to what is the equivalent of the minor leagues.
Teams like Aston Villa and Sunderland were ruled out at that point.
It left me with about 12 realistic options.
After mulling over all of them, I finally decided on Tottenham Hotspur, a club based in London.
There were a couple of reasons why I chose that particular club over others, one of which was the exciting young striker Harry Kane, a 22-year-old that scored 21 goals in his first season as a starter for Tottenham, earning him the PFA Young Player of the Year Award and a spot on the PFA Team of the Year.
Despite not having the brilliant history that some of the other clubs have, Tottenham finished fifth last year and had the youngest team in the league, which made them a team to watch in the future.
All seemed well early on with my new fandom.
Tottenham came out and had their best season in years this year, and it was a thrilling ride.
They marched toward the Top of the Table with an explosive offense, led by Kane and Dele Alli, another exciting youngster, and a stifling defense.
But as a lifelong Ole Miss fan, I know heartbreak. It follows me from sport to sport.
And I was unable to escape despair in my new venture.
As the only team that could statistically catch Leicester City in their improbable run to glory, Tottenham had to win out in the final few matches of the season.
Instead, they blew lead after lead, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they dropped the final match of the season 5-1 to the already relegated Newcastle United, giving them third place... one spot behind dreaded rival Arsenal.
Over the years, I’ve learned to simply enjoy the ride and disregard the destination, and picking up a new interest made for quite the adventure.
