How did you became a Cavs fan? For those who are not from Cleveland.

[SalvadoranCavsfan]

Living in Columbus I was lucky (or unlucky depending on your perspective) to grow up a Browns fan instead of a Bengals fan or God forbid a Steelers sellout. Naturally I became a fan of the Indians and Cavs, but once LeBron joined the Cavs it was much easier to catch Cavs games on t.v. here, and I was hooked. When LeBron was drafted I was only 11, so it was the perfect time for me to get sucked in.

 

[macbdog]

To me this is a real fan... It doesn't matter why you started watching.. It matter why you kept watching.

A previous poster said they don't understand "blind loyalty" and is just a fan of LeBron. I'm a big fan of Andrew Wiggins as many of you know, I'll watch him play for the Wolves; but I'd rather Wiggins break his spine than the Cavaliers not win the Finals.







*Just for the record, I would hope that the paralysis was one of those that he eventually regains some use of his legs. I'm not totally heartless .

This really got me thinking. As a fellow Wiggins fan who is sad to see him go, my first thought was 'I'd rather Wiggins comes down with Ebola than have him cost the Cavs a Finals victory'.

This got me thinking of a TRUE Fan test. So here it goes:

Who is your favorite/most beloved family member, and what kind of injury would you be willing to see them suffer if it means a Cavaliers title?

I'll start: my mom and a broken hip. Your turn to prove your fandom, gentlemen.

 

[gourimoko]

I would rather Andrew Wiggins comes down with Ebola than have the Cavs not win the Finals.








Too far?

Yeah....





Nah, shh...





maybe..just a little..

 

[gourimoko]

Who is your favorite/most beloved family member, and what kind of injury would you be willing to see them suffer if it means a Cavaliers title?

I'll start: my mom and a broken hip. Your turn to prove your fandom, gentlemen.

:chuckles:

You got me beat there bro... Jesus Christ! :chuckles:

Probably a cousin. I'd probably break one of there ribs with a hammer for a dynasty.

 

[Soda Popinski]

I am from Northwest Ohio and the same age as Lebron. I saw him a few times a year when they played their Regional games at Toledo. They played Ottawa Glandorf, a team from the same county I went to school in, I think two or three years in a row. My high school team would always go to State and watch the games down there. So I have sort have followed Lebron since he was a Sophomore in high school. I was more of just a college basketball fan growing up and didn't watch a lot of NBA post Jordan. I went to my 1st NBA game in the 05-06 season. I got hooked. Started going to as many games as I could. The Cavs became my team after that. Went to the first Finals game in Cleveland. I have been going to games ever since. Love that arena when the Cavs are playing good. Still went to games and watched after Lebron left.

 

[MarkPriceFever]

I grew up in Iowa during the Michael Jordan craze. An important thing to note about Iowa is there are no professional sports teams. Most people latch on to various teams around the Midwest or popular teams from when they were young. Being a younger brother, I naturally could not root for the same team as my older brother. He picked the Bulls so I hated them with a burning passion.

The reason I decided with the Cavs is because Mark Price is money in NBA Jam. The game is won with 3s and Price can't miss.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

To me this is a real fan... It doesn't matter why you started watching.. It matter why you kept watching.

What puzzles me is what fans of particular players -- as opposed fans of the team -- mean when they asked to be "accepted" or "welcomed." Follow the team or not -- I personally don't care, and it doesn't affect me or my status as a fan of the "team" one bit. But what you say or do on this particular website I think is a bit different. If you start posting something on this forum that supports your player but that slams the team, or make it clear you really don't give a crap how the team does as long as "your guy" looks good, they're you should expect to get crapped on at a site called "Real Cavs Fans". Likewise, if you insist on shoving in our face the fact that you're not a fan of the "team", but only a temporary fan because of that one player, then again, expect to get crapped on. This is a website devoted to a team, not an individual player. That is a different thing from "fandom" in general.

On the other hand, those people who are fans of a particular guy from college or overseas, and who have adopted the Cavs as "their" team because they never really had one, welcome. Being a fan of a Cleveland sports team is somewhat unique, because nothing will ever feel as good to any fanbase as when we finally win one. Grown men crying...oh yeah. Shit, I had tears in my eyes at the end of Major League.

 

[Homestar]

My Dad grew up in Parma as a hardcore Indians/Browns/Cavs fan. He moved to Houston in 1980, met my Mom, and had me 4 years later.

He named me after Brett Butler, but before the internet, he didn't know his middle name. So he went drove 4.5 hours to an Indians/Rangers game, and leaned his head over the dugout to ask him what his middle name was.

I went to Cleveland every summer as a kid, but only lived there for about 9 months between two internships - with the Indians in 05 and Browns in 06. The Browns internship was June - January, and by September I knew I couldn't handle the weather. After the season, I moved to Tampa and have continued being an outsider, but never wavering on enthusiasm.

 

[Stark]

Agh, the stigma of the notorious July 2014 join date...

If it makes you feel better, you're one of the July '14 members I like.

 

[2 For The Brew]

Well, as you can read under my avatar: I'm from Germany.

I started following the Cavs in Kyrie's rookie year, the 2011-2012 season.
Before, I was just a casual fan, watching some Dallas games (because of Nowitzki of course).

So I watched a few games of Kyrie and immediately fell in love with his game (I also liked AV a lot!!!). So Kyrie was the reason I started following the Cavs.

Then, after all this "LeBron to Cavs"-rumors this off-season, I was just trying to get more and more infos, reading Twitter and on RealGM...
So I was also searching for a Cavs forum to get more infos and I found realcavsfans.com (and the LBJ Safari)

This is a really cool board, imo. Hope to have some great discussions with everyone!

And please excuse my bad english...

General Rule: Any non-native English speaker who says "Please excuse my bad English" can read / write English better than at least 50% of native-born Americans. Having lived in Germany or worked for German-owned firms since early 1994 I would say that percentage is over 90% for Germans under the age of fifty.

 

[TJ Detweiler]

I was born in Toledo and moved around every 2 years for most of my life since the 5th grade because of my parent's work. My parents aren't sports fans, but i've always had family living in Cleveland. I was born in Toledo, moved to Ireland back to Toledo to Cleveland back to Toledo, and then I moved to New Hampshire. I lived in New Hampshire starting in 2003 when The Red Sox ended their famous 86 year title drought, and I fell in love with everything Boston, the Celtics, Pats, Red Sox. I still have commemorative Red Sox magazines lying around my house. I moved back to Cleveland in the 5th grade and I feel like that is where true sports allegiances tend to form, and god forbid I completely did a 180 and started to fall in love with Cleveland sports. I was a Red Sox fan until the 8th grade when the Tribe were eliminated from the playoffs, and for some reason that made me start favoring the Tribe over the Red Sox over time. My Cleveland fandom started because of a player named LeBron James. The older I got, and especially when LeBron left I started to realize that I was a Cleveland fan over everything, and I started taking Cleveland Sports extremely seriously.

So in a nutshell I basically fucked myself by liking Cleveland Sports over Boston Sports and i'm in too deep.

 

[kevin02]

This really got me thinking. As a fellow Wiggins fan who is sad to see him go, my first thought was 'I'd rather Wiggins comes down with Ebola than have him cost the Cavs a Finals victory'.

This got me thinking of a TRUE Fan test. So here it goes:

Who is your favorite/most beloved family member, and what kind of injury would you be willing to see them suffer if it means a Cavaliers title?

I'll start: my mom and a broken hip. Your turn to prove your fandom, gentlemen.

Well if I use my dad, I think he would probably agree to break his own neck if I told him it would guarantee us a championship.

 

[2 For The Brew]

I've seen Cleveland games in Dallas, San Francisco, Philly, Cincinnati -- one thing keeps shining through: lots of people have left Cleveland for the past several decades because of school / job / other reasons, but Cleveland sports fans almost always tend to remain fiercely loyal. Defeat, disappointment and loss (i.e. Modell, LeBron Decision #1) does NOT end that devotion -- on the contrary, we are sad, but then we become even more grimly determined.

Typical story: Flying to Cincinnati from Philly on Business, young man next to me was a Cincinnati native but a Cleveland fan. His family were casual Cincinnati fans, but not him. He told me his father didn't understand.

When I asked him why he was a Cleveland fan, he said that his best friend -- a Cincinnati native like him -- had parents who had left Cleveland before he was born, but were typical Cleveland fans -- death before dishonor. Therefore his friend was born and bred a Cleveland fan -- in Cincinnati -- and that was why he was a Cleveland fan. That's the power of Cleveland fans at work.

I used to think that we Cleveland sports fans are cursed, and the losing and disappointments meant that being the Cleveland fan was the worst, and we just had to accept that. But it isn't. If anything, it's the BEST. Why? Those of us who have stuck through it are TRUE fans that experience the reality of sports like the reality of life -- not always pleasant or easy, but we never quit, and we never give up hope. This is a felling that the bandwaggoners and fans of casual, easy-winning towns will never have.

That's also why, for all of the Cleveland jokes, nobody jokes about the devotion of us fans. That is respected around the country.

It's not LeBron's return either. Or Manziel. It's remaining Browns fans after Modell and 20 starting quarterbacks that all sucked since the return, or remaining Indians fans after thirty-odd years of losing and 1997 and 2007 -- or, especially, remaining Cavs fans after Stepien bought the team and wrecked it, or after LeBron left. No matter how much events have tried to kill the loyal support of Clevelanders and fans from around the globe -- it can't die. We're not fragile, ego-driven shallow people from fancy & trendy towns -- we're the true spirit of Cleveland -- tough, resilient and able to take punishment and get back up.

 

[Ophir]

I'm a huge Maccabi Tel Aviv fan and as a result my idol is coach Blatt, This guy is the best basketball mind I have seen (And I see a lot of basketball, worldwide basketball not just NBA). He made renowned coaches (Obradovic, Messina and others) with extremely high budgets look like amateurs with his undermanned Maccabi, so it's going to be very special to see what he makes out of Lebron, Kyrie and possibly Love. I used to cheer the Spurs because I love the way they are playing, very similar to euro-ball, that coach POP knows pretty good.
But when Blatt signed for the Cavs I immediately became a fan and I truly believe that even the great coach POP knows that Blatt is a huge threat...

 

[Dr. Claw]

I gotta say, this thread has been amazing.

Didn't know how popular Blatt was overseas; to say I was excited about the hire is understating it. I was just happy they didn't pick a retread. But it sounds like we really have someone special (if he brings fans all over the world to the Cavs over someone like LeBron or Kyrie being on the team).

Also props to the one who mentioned Mark Price in NBA Jam. Price was my favorite guy to use in that game because of that. The Cavs were low key, "cheesers" in basketball video games in that era. If only the real team was like that... well, maybe they are now!