Hate Will Bring Us Together

(With apologies to Joy Division...)

My name is Tanner Riley, and I am a bona fide, pure-bred hater. It’s true. I have hatred in my heart and I genuinely believe you should let hatred into yours as well. In these trying times where we are so divided and so polarized, I know I should write an article that says that we should put our hatred aside. 

To that I say, simply, No. This will not be that article. I believe– like truly believe –that Hate can bring us together as a society (or at the very least, help you find like-minded community). Let me explain what I mean. 

College football is upon us, week 0 games having been played this Saturday and the real season kicking off in mere days. As a lifelong college football fan, there are many things I love about the sport: the pageantry, the traditions, the local support, the drama, etc. But perhaps the thing I love most of all was how it taught me the importance of Sports Hate. Sports Hate is what I believe can unite us– if not as a greater “Society,” then at least as a sports-watching society. You may be asking what is Sports Hate? It contains multitudes. It is a term that can mean many things. I did not coin it and I’m sure it has been around for quite some time, in fact. But Sports Hate comes out of us being fans: we are fanatical, which by definition means we are not rational. Sports Hate, at least in its purest form, isn’t violent: it’s not wishing physical harm upon someone, or that their personal life will be ruined. But it is more than just cheering for your own team to win; it’s also actively wishing that the team or player you Sports Hate lose, that ideally in either a blowout or the most heartbreaking fashion imaginable. 

Let me give you some examples, and University of South Carolina fans should really look away right now. Anyone who knows me knows this, and I will proudly yell it from the mountaintops: I want Clemson to win every week, yes, but I want more than just about anything for UofSC to lose every game they play in every sport from now until the end of time. I promise you that my petty hating heart would never get tired of this. Is this a rational adult response? I mean, probably not. But does it make my College Football Saturdays better when I turn on a UofSC game and see them beaten or even better, humiliated? Yes, yes it does. I would like to direct you to Exhibit A, my personal happy place:

The following examples will surely be more of a referendum on me than anything else, but I invite you to join in my brand of Sports Hate, or better yet, chime in with some of your own. As is the case with all God-fearing individuals, I hate the Dallas Cowboys (and to my in-laws, I’m not sorry). I love to watch them lose. I turn on their games out of pure spite and love to watch them fall apart on Sundays. Please remember though, it’s Dallas’s year! It’s always Dallas’s year! 

That doesn't move the needle for you? Let’s try one a little closer to home for this blog: Duke Basketball. Sure, I will admit Duke was a lot more fun to hate when Coach K was in charge, but hey, I can still make it work. I wasn’t around when Christian Laettner played for Duke but I know he would have scratched my itch when it comes to sports-hating Duke. And Laettner, with his cocky attitude and dirty play, might be the most famous example but is certainly not the last. Take everyone’s least favorite Ted Cruz lookalike, Grayson Allen. The Tripper-in-Chief is the poster child for moral Sports Hate. He was good, maybe even great in college. I guess it really depends on who you ask, I’m not here to litigate how good he was at basketball. I’m here to talk about hateability. Grayson Allen had the face of a villain. He matched that face with antics on the court to back it up. Our man loved to trip opposing players. And what did he get for his repeated instances of tripping? A one game suspension and a “disappointed” Coach K. That’ll teach him. Okay, okay, back to Coach K and his hollier than thou attitude. There’s too much here to even fit in one article, but my favorite example of this is Coach K lecturing an opposing player after losing a game. Please do yourself a favor and Google “Coach K lectures Dillon Brooks.” For the K haters out there it was the Holy Grail. I have never been more vindicated in my sports-hating life. 

This might be a hot take, but I can’t help it: I sports hate Kirk Cousins. I know, I know. This is basically a drive-by on poor Cousins. He was overhyped and overpaid and has underdelivered. I enjoy watching him throw interceptions. It all started with the cringy “you like that!” I do like that, Kirk. I like watching you being dead average and not delivering in the clutch. Before you feel too bad for Kirk Cousins, keep in mind he has won 1 playoff game (the same number as one Tim Tebow) and he has made himself quite a lot of money. In fact, for 1 playoff win in his career, he has been paid (after his Falcons contract is up) over 400 million dollars. 

Here’s one last one I know is more specific to myself. I love Clemson sports. It doesn’t matter if it is football, basketball, soccer, softball, baseball, or gymnastics. If Clemson is competing, then I’m locked in and probably hating our opponents. So, while I never would have expected it and still can’t really explain it, I find myself wishing nothing but bad things for NC State Gymnasts. They have done nothing wrong and they all seem like great people and competitors… but they beat Clemson and for this, I wish that they would lose every match. 

I know this isn’t rational and I promise I don’t carry this ill will into their personal lives. I don’t wish anything bad to happen to the teams or fans of the teams that I sports hate. Whether that be Texas, Iowa (sorry to the Sickos Committee), Ohio State, USC (the real one), UofSC (the impostors), Florida, Georgia Tech, Baylor, Texas A&M, etc. I hope that their players have success in their personal lives and their sports endeavors, but only after they are done competing for their respective teams. This is where the fine line between fun Sports Hate and real hate begins. Please do not hear what I’m not saying; Sports Hate, unlike real hate, stays on the field, pitch, or court. It goes no further. We keep it rational even though it is mostly irrational.

So, how does this bring us together? Well, sure, we may not all agree on most targets of our Sports Hate, but we do all feel it, right? And I do believe we can all find pockets of the genre we all agree on. You can’t tell me that you, a sports fanatic, will not enjoy when LeBron eventually gets tired of being on Luka’s Lakers and starts being petty in the press and on social media. This doesn’t make LeBron a bad person, but it is does make it fun to watch the Lakers suck. You can’t tell me that watching A&M blow all the oil money in their rich donors hands on a college football team that at best, will go 8-4. Doesn’t that bring some joy to your petty sports-hating heart? For the people that find UNC Basketball annoying (sorry Daniel, we are friends, but this has to be said) you can’t tell me that you don’t find great enjoyment in them keeping Hubert Davis as the head coach when all neutral observers would tell you he needs to go because he simply isn’t good. 

Don’t let me limit your Sports Hate though! I have no connections to Texas, Texas A&M, Florida, USC, or Baylor or the many other teams in College Football that I sports-hate. You can choose individual players or coaches…hell you can even hate the damn mascot if you want (for me it’s Bevo. Such an overrated mascot). Find the thing and embrace it. Find your community that shares in the Sports Hate. It can be any sport, and the best part is,  it doesn’t have to make sense. As the great poet and philosopher Emperor Palpatine once said, “Let the hate flow through you.” Those are words I live by in my life. All I ask is that you keep it to on the field and not any further……and that you direct it toward the Cowboys and Duke Basketball (I promise it will reward you annually, when they disappoint their delusional fans).