Around the Hood: Football is family

Editor's Note: Every week, Rio Rancho Observer sports and education reporter Taylor Hood looks at one of the main news items in sports around Rio Rancho, Bernalillo, and Sandoval County. From Gladiator's football to prep cheer to club sports, Taylor will dive in as he takes a look “Around the Hood.”

Football is back!

The Friday night lights clicked on a few weeks ago. The Saturday night ones came on two weeks ago, and the bright lights of Sunday’s Big Show finally burst on last week. The long wait is over. Pigskin is back.

That means, in diners and offices, at the dentist and on the bus, in school and at the gym, the most asked question of the season is in the air: “Who’s your team?”

In New Mexico, there’s the Cowboys fans. They are at odds with the Raiders and Broncos fans, of course.

Then there’s the “why do you root for them?” crowd, who support the Packers, or the Patriots, or the 49ers, or the Dolphins, or any one of 32 honestly-kind-of-random NFL teams.

There are plenty of reasons we as New Mexicans find a pro team to support, be it family or geography (which seems strange considering there are at least six NFL teams closer to the city of Philadelphia than the closest team to Rio Rancho), but it’s all personal loyalty. It isn’t civic pride, at least, not for Rio Rancho.

At its heart, sports fandom is about civic pride. It’s about turning a sports team into an avatar of your home and hoping your town beats the other person’s town.

But maybe it’s time to think a little more about the truth of those connections.

In the early 20th century, professional sports teams may have been tied to the cities in which they were born. Nowadays, with very few (if any) exceptions, professional team owners are willing to sell their civic pride to the highest bidder. Pro teams seem willing to drop their entire fanbase, all their history, everything they’ve built, just for a shot at a publicly funded stadium.

I would propose that civic pride, in the case of New Mexicans, means eschewing traditional professional sports team fandom.

“Who’s your team?”

“Me? Well, I just love football, man.”

Try that answer sometime. Watch the look of bewilderment and confusion that crosses the other person’s face.

But here’s the thing: there are teams, and there is football in this town that does represent Rio Rancho. There are those who are worthy of your loyalty, deserving of your dollars.

If you want real, team loyalty, civic pride, personal engagement, and all the excitement of sports played with heart, for the "love of the game," there is only one answer: prep football.

All of that is alive and well in the City of Vision. It isn’t just some cliche on the WB or on a locker room wall. It’s real and it’s on display every Friday night in Rio Rancho.

(Well, not “every Friday night”, but that sounds more poetic than “roughly every other week except for byes, scheduling quirks, etc.”)

That heart can be found in the Storm, the Rams and the Spartans on the field, giving it their all, for the game, for themselves, for you.

The glitz and glamor of the NFL is just that: glitz and glamor. Jerry Jones doesn’t care about Rio Rancho. Andy Reid doesn’t care about Rio Rancho. Aaron Rodgers doesn’t care about Rio Rancho. You know who does? RRHS’s Coach Nate Pino. Cleveland’s Coach Robert Garza. Bernalillo’s Coach John Cobos. And every member of their staff and teams. They care.

Sports fandom is taken far more seriously than it should be. But it exists. It’s part of the fabric of our culture. It’s strong and passionate and so often given to rich fat cats in sky boxes who are unworthy of that loyalty. But our kids and our community deserve that loyalty, that fandom.

Pro teams come and go, and they are all too ready to break your heart for a quick buck (ask fans of the original Cleveland Browns, or us old-timers who remember the glorious Seattle Supersonics about that) but prep teams ... they play for their friends, their families and their communities.

I’ll stop short of speaking for you, but to me, that’s worth every bit of my fandom.

That is until Superintendent Sue Cleveland holds a press conference saying she’s moving the Storm to Santa Fe unless we build them a new stadium. If that ever happens, please contact me at thood@rrobserver.com. Thanks!