I&8217;m an emotional sports fan. I don&8217;t just mean I&8217;m the sort of person who cries at the end of the movie &8220;Rudy&8221; or gets a lump in her throat over &8220;Hoosiers.&8221;

And it doesn&8217;t mean I&8217;m a sports fan who understands all of the plays of the game or even enjoys watching every sport.

I just love certain teams for reasons that have nothing to do with how they play or what the uniforms look like.

I have friends with similar appreciation for different teams, although their distinction is that they actually know how each sport is played. A former editor grew up listening to Braves games on the radio with her grandfather; another friend watched the Cubs on cable with his dad.

I, too, come by my passionate fandom honestly. I can remember few autumn Saturdays growing up that did not include my father yelling at the TV to protest whatever foolish play his alma mater Penn State made. Somewhere in their house my parents still have a sacred videotape of their 1986 Fiesta Bowl win, which guaranteed the Nitney Lions the National Championship long before the BCS math confused everything. Any talk of JoPa&8217;s need to retire after last season was blasphemy around the Whipple house.

My earliest years were spent north of the Mason-Dixon line, rooting, of course, for my father&8217;s beloved Cleveland Indians and Browns.

I wept when Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore, rejoiced when they returned as an expansion team. I harbored as much hatred as a child could muster for the Denver Broncos in the 1980s, who prevented my team from going to the Super Bowl.

And no matter how many times I see that B-movie &8220;Major League,&8221; I still get teary when the Indians win the pennant.

When they really did win the pennant in 1997, I was on cloud nine, a dizzying spiral that almost ended in a temper tantrum when the upstart Florida Marlins spoiled their World Series hopes.

Loving sports is one thing; loving a team is quite another. It bonds you to a place and to a group of people like few other experiences.

As we&8217;re in the thick now of March Madness, I&8217;m reminded of how the love for an underdog basketball team helped ease my family&8217;s transition to the South.

We moved to Memphis, Tenn., when I was in the third grade, and it was not entirely a pleasant experience. My brother was uprooted in his senior year; my sister and I felt like foreigners among people who used terms like &8220;y&8217;all&8221; and &8220;fixin&8217; to.&8221;

But the following year, we somehow caught the fan fever surrounding the then-Memphis State Tigers, who made it all the way to the Final Four that year. It was a fun spring, rooting for a team in a town we were just beginning to call home.

To this day, I&8217;d cheer the Tigers over anyone else, including my alma mater Alabama.

So I&8217;ll be rooting for Memphis today against Oklahoma State in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

My practical hopes aren&8217;t that high, but true fans don&8217;t worry about that.

There&8217;s always a miracle waiting in the wings.

Kerry Whipple

is editor of The Democrat. She can be reached at 445-3541 or by

e-mail at kerry.whipple@ natchezdemocrat.com.