With Peyton Manning being in his second Super Bowl, people started talking about the greatest quarterbacks, and football players, of all time. When getting into a “who’s the greatest” argument there are always a couple of factors you must deal with.

1. The raw data. By the numbers, who was the best ever in any given statistical category?
2. Intangibles. Was the ability displayed on the field even able to be measured in numbers? What made this player standout besides the stats.
3. The source. Is the person claiming a player is the “greatest” affiliated to the player in some way? Basically, are they a fan of that player’s team?

When analyzing these three categories, you would hope they are all weighted and took into consideration amongst debaters. Unfortunately, when amongst friends, in informal settings, the only area of concern is the source. Anytime you throw out a players name in a discussion your friends will recognize that the player is on your team’s roster (or former roster) and immediately mock and harass you for being a homer. You are nothing more than a big fan (now the picture makes sense…kind of).

“They have the best winning percentage ever guys!”

“What team again? Lakers? Get out of here with that! ‘Oh I love the Lakers’…nice purple colors Lady Tron.”

Owned.

It doesn’t have to make sense when in friend rebuttal form, it just has to mock you and belittle you as a person in some way. That’s what friends do. Your claims may be sound, backed up with data, and clear to most paid analysts on ESPN, but to your friends, you are nothing but a home team lemming.

Fan Up for Your Team

There is only one solution to the problem of friend discrediting: kill your friends. After you get out of prison on good behavior and extra help in the library where you find books which guide you to the practices of piece and Muhammad, you can also try faking your team allegiance. This can be quite difficult and at times, extremely painful; but if pulled off correctly, faking your fandom can be very rewarding.

The key step to faking your fan allegiance is finding the right time to make the conversion. Going off to college is often used for education, but for a true fan, this time is used to convert the seeds of jerseys and website bookmarks to grow your fake fandom. If you go into a new group of friends displaying a different team allegiance your future arguments for a player on another team look quite strong.

“I have to say, for as long as I have known Lamarcus he has been a die hard Pittsburgh fan. For him to say Otto Graham and Jim Brown are the greatest ever says a lot. I believe him.” (Actual recreated response…maybe.)

Only a true fan can root for the rival team for years on end just to make their point stand up in an arena of their peers.

I flipped the Marvel calender to February today when I got into work and things just got weird. Ms. Marvel spread with her arms to her side gesturing, “do you like what I’ve got going on down here?”

Co-workers have done a double take a couple of times. It is kind of funny. I will start talking to someone and they are just checking out my calender and thinking “This guy’s a creep: checking out half naked comic chicks.”

After a day of looking at this, along with many office walker-byers, I decided to make Ms. Marvel a nice poodle skirt.