Who we are
I asked Tim what Louisville means to him, and because he has lived here his entire life, he answered "A sense of pride in my hometown."
Curious to learn if Tim had any pre-game rituals, he told me he never leaves the football games until the game is over. And until this past season, he was in the stands for the start of every football game kickoff.
Louisville first
Cardinals forever!
Cardinals forever!
We are Louisville Cardinal fans. We are a folk group that shares common tastes, speech, stories, and traditions. We unfaulteringly bleed red and black and our fanaticness is overall unwaivering.
When I went into this project, I had to have a thesis in mind with this particular fieldwork. Looking at the UofL fanbase as a whole compared to local teams, I thought about how they're represented, especially within the state of Kentucky. Just by looking at fan support, it's easy to say most Kentuckians have the back of the Kentucky Wildcats (UK), and politicians in Frankfort, Kentucky do as well. Studying this, I thought about how this would affect the everyday Cardinal fan's psyche. You they have a need to thus be louder than the average UK, Indiana Hoosier, or Tennessee Volunteer fan? After asking a question or two to several fans mainly across the internet landscape, this became easy to see. As one fan noted to me, they were proud of the success of the university, despite little state support. Some UK fans have branded UofL 'Little brother,' and Cardinal players and diehard fans alike have been viciously trying to break away from that image, one win at a time.
In her article "'Locating' The Nation: Football Game Day and American Dreams in Central Ohio," Danille Lindquist says that "football in central Ohio performs national identity (including tropes of competitive oppurtunity, mechanized teamwork, and homeland defense) in terms of shared experiences and expressions grounded in local affiliations" (446). Like Buckeye fans in Columbus, Louisville fans have a sense of identity pride, and loyalty when they cheer for the home team. By putting on a UofL hat on, a lot of people are symbolically saying "I am a Louisvillian." When a group of Cardinals root on the same players, they are saying "We are a family." When their team loses the big game, they shed the same tears.
Lindquist talked to Ohio State fans about jokes involving the opposing team, and they gave her ones about Michigan, the arch rival (which should be no surprise) (457). If you talk to many UofL fans, most might have shared jokes or riddles in the dismay of Kentucky. For example, UK fans will probably be the punchline to the joke "How do you get a ____ fan off of your yard? Pay for the pizza!"
Certain players become legends for many a Cardinal supporter. The fans also hate to see those same players not succeed on the field or court. When Steve Kragthorpe took over head coaching for football in 2007, just a year off from winning a BCS bowl game, fans stopped showing up when he couldn't get it done on the football field.
In her article "'Locating' The Nation: Football Game Day and American Dreams in Central Ohio," Danille Lindquist says that "football in central Ohio performs national identity (including tropes of competitive oppurtunity, mechanized teamwork, and homeland defense) in terms of shared experiences and expressions grounded in local affiliations" (446). Like Buckeye fans in Columbus, Louisville fans have a sense of identity pride, and loyalty when they cheer for the home team. By putting on a UofL hat on, a lot of people are symbolically saying "I am a Louisvillian." When a group of Cardinals root on the same players, they are saying "We are a family." When their team loses the big game, they shed the same tears.
Lindquist talked to Ohio State fans about jokes involving the opposing team, and they gave her ones about Michigan, the arch rival (which should be no surprise) (457). If you talk to many UofL fans, most might have shared jokes or riddles in the dismay of Kentucky. For example, UK fans will probably be the punchline to the joke "How do you get a ____ fan off of your yard? Pay for the pizza!"
Certain players become legends for many a Cardinal supporter. The fans also hate to see those same players not succeed on the field or court. When Steve Kragthorpe took over head coaching for football in 2007, just a year off from winning a BCS bowl game, fans stopped showing up when he couldn't get it done on the football field.
Tim McMonigal, a Louisville native, has been a Cardinal fan as long as he can remember. I sat down with Tim one day to ask fim about UofL. He enjoys the sport of football more than basketball, so I ventured in on him being a Cards football fanatic.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Full bodied Cardinal logo. Note: Copyright sportslogos.net, 2005
Tim McMonigal