I’ve been a college sports fan most of my life. When I was a child, my father, a former Arkansas Razorback basketball player, indoctrinated me into the cult of all things Hog. I won’t go into great detail about this, but I will admit to once wearing a hog cap (not one of the hard, plastic ‘hog hats’ that are often seen during TV coverage of Razorback games, but a red mesh cap with a snout) and to ‘calling the Hogs’ (“Whooooooooo Pig Sooie!”). I will also admit that I learned to “hate” the evil Texas Longhorns.

Past fandom can come back to haunt anyone.

Those were the days of the old Southwest Conference and the annual Hogs-Longhorns battle was a tremendous rivalry. It was the biggest game of the year, or, to use a cliché, it was the game everyone in Arkansas “circled on their calendars.” I recall that, during the week leading up to the game, I would draw numerous, color pictures of creative and horrific brutalities being heaped upon the official Texas mascot, Bevo (from being roasted on a spit by a smiling Hog to being kicked through uneven or crooked goalposts). I have since asked my parents burn these pictures out of a fear that I would be added to some sort of PETA hit list.

When I went off to college, I made the difficult transition to a new team, the LSU Tigers. Unfortunately, shortly after I arrived in Baton Rouge, Arkansas made the transition to the Southeastern Conference and a conflict of loyalties began. Nevertheless, for most of my college career, LSU was mediocre to terrible in most of the major sports, which made the transition a bit easier. Very little was at stake.

Then everything changed. Shortly after I graduated, LSU made coaching moves (anyone remember that Nick Saban fellow?), stepped up recruiting and managed to become competitive once again in football. In addition, I made the decision to buy season tickets, getting them while the getting was good and providing myself a weekend social activity that would keep me in touch with my college friends.

In short, I became invested. Powerfully so. Tiger garb was purchased, a tailgating group was joined, tacky flags were attached to the car, and visiting SEC and LSU chat boards became a regular habit. And, as a natural consequence of all of this, the annual Thanksgiving showdown between Arkansas and LSU became a true family-splitting nightmare.

Nothing is more unsettling to me during these holiday Tiger-Hog showdowns than walking into the aging and diminutive (though it seemed as massive and impressive as Rome’s Colosseum to Child Me) War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, where I had seen my first football game and learned what it meant to be a college sports fan. This was where I learned to cheer in tandem with a family of thousands and where I first joyfully took part in the then-popular-but-now-loathed “wave.” It was where I first smelled the powerful and illicit odor of bourbon emanating from nearby plastic game cups and where I first devoured those terrifying, but strangely delicious stadium hot dogs.

Entering this hallowed temple of my childhood wearing enemy colors and being subjected to the scowls and jeers of the same folks with whom I spent the better part of my life cheering? This was a unique and acutely painful form of torture. Putting up with the occasionally brutal ribbing of my fraternity brothers was a smooth shot of Basil Hayden’s compared to this. This annual agony is only exacerbated by the fact that my father remains a loyal and passionate Razorback fan. In those years when the game is held in Baton Rouge, he is unafraid to adorn his car and himself in Hog-alia and proudly make his way to Tiger Stadium. When he does this, my protective instincts kick in and I feel the need to stand between him and any overly lubricated “Tiger Bait”-yelling LSU fan. This is not easy, of course. There’s a whole hell of a lot of soused, vocal fans on campus during a game day.

Through the years, the LSU-Arkansas pain has intensified as the games themselves have almost always been nail-biting, down-to-the-wire, overtime epics that leave one side or the other disgusted, bitter and in no mood to be gracious.

Arkansas fans look for their kicker after last year's overtime loss to LSU.

So, this is how it all began … with torn allegiances and encounters with the negative side of fan passion. This is what started my transformation from die-hard fan into sports wuss.  There’s much more to discuss (like just what a “sports wuss” is to begin with), but this post is too long already. The rest will be covered in Part 2: “Of Madness & Message Boards,” in which I lash out at a blogger that I once enjoyed and praise some others. Sound like fun? Great. Check back later this week.