1 of 3

Write now Article Tools

The Minnesota Vikings are losers. There's no sugarcoating this fact. I could list, from memory, the top ten worst moments in Vikings history, complete with several (dis)honorable mentions, and you'd agree with me. My case is airtight. I can sum it up with a lone, simple, statistic: 0-4 in Super Bowls. See? Losers.

But I'm not here to argue that case. I'm here to try to explain why it's a good thing to cheer for such a bad team.

First of all, I'm a Vikings fan because I choose to be. I don't even live in Minnesota anymore, so if I suddenly started wearing a Patriots jersey, nobody would know that I had switched sides. I'll never do that, though, because being a Vikings fan was passed down to me by my father. He watched all the games, so I watched all the games. Growing up, they were the team I saw, and the team I identified with. It became a part of who I am, and I'm not going to be disloyal to them, or to myself.

And yes, I know that loyalty isn't necessarily a good thing in all areas of life. If the woman you're dating also dates others, then you surely aren't expected to be loyal to her. If the salesman who sells you a car forgets to mention the dying transmission, then you certainly shouldn't be loyal to him. So why, oh why, would I ever want to be loyal to a group of people who've done nothing but disappoint me? It doesn't make sense.

But it does. Being a fan of a loser isn't so terrible, once you get used to it. You sort of look forward to being crushed. Despair is like a familiar old friend that comes back into your life on an extremely dependable schedule. Cheering for a losing team has become a longstanding family tradition that enables us all to bond.

(On a side note, I can't believe I'm here arguing FOR loyalty and tradition. At any moment, someone's going to burst through my front door and revoke my liberal license.)

Also, there's no such thing as a Vikings bandwagon. Nobody deems it cool to be a Vikes fan. It'll never be a fad. Those who are onboard, remain onboard. It's a cozy, tight community where you can drown your sorrows together. And man, are there a lot of sorrows to drown.

Minnesotans are accustomed to never being goliath. Sports has plenty of them, but they never reside in the Twin Cities, preferring to live in exotic locales like New York and Los Angeles. We're underdogs. We Minnesotans survive in a hostile climate, in a region of the country that is scoffed at and looked upon as a "flyover" state. So we're totally accepting of a team that loses often, knowing that a win for us would be far sweeter than any of goliath's many triumphs.

Just imagine with me, for a second, the scene on the night when the Vikings win the Super Bowl. It'll be catastrophic, the equivalent of everything human beings know being invalidated, and we'd all suddenly start breathing underwater and sprouting wings from our shoulders and flying away. Remember the scene when that other bunch of losers, the Red Sox, won? It'll be like that, except tripled. Oh, the glory that Vikings fans will revel in will more than make up for all the pain, suffering, and despair that's been wrought on us in the past. In short, being a Vikings fan promises the ultimate high, if only we can figure out a way to live until the proverbial hell actually freezes over.

Learn more about this author, Colby Cannon.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Testimonies: What it's like to be a Minnesota Vikings fan?
We want to hear your view. Write now!