My Road to Being a Storm Fan Part I

I've loved sports for as long as I can remember. I'd watch the sports channel every day, watching everything from soccer to golf. I'd usually discover a "sports hero", someone I'd look up to and follow religiously. Often, however, my interest would fade after a few months and I'd just stop paying attention. I would also support sports teams that were doing extremely well and just lose interest when they'd start doing poorly. In other words, I was a fair-weathered fan.
I chanced upon the Seattle Storm by chance. I was channel surfing one night in the summer of 2004 when I came upon the Solar Sports coverage of the WNBA. I was planning to catch just a few minutes of it just because I was bored. It was what I saw in those few minutes that really opened my eyes to the world of women's basketball. I remember just being so amazed by the game of Sue Bird. She played the point flawlessly. She took charge of possessions and orchestrated the offense like I've never seen before. She scored when she could, passed when she should and was instrumental in getting her team the win.

I remember looking for information on the Seattle Storm and on Sue Bird online right after that. That's when I began learning about the WNBA. The official website of the Storm was my first stop and then I stumbled upon Stormfans.org, possibly the best fansite I've ever encountered.

I was hooked. I followed the Storm for the rest of the season, even if it meant getting up at ungodly hours in the morning just to keep refreshing a page of stats to see if they were winning or not. It's worthy to note that I lived in the Philippines back then and my dial-up connection was painfully slow.

That was the season the Storm won the championship. Although I was a new fan and I hadn't been there for their trying years, I was still elated. The Storm, with their brilliant play and the unselfish personalities of their players, had endeared themselves so much to me that I felt like I was emotionally with them whenever they won and whenever they lost. Admittedly, the fact that they won on my first year as a fan made it easier for me to follow them. My sister was still not convinced that this was not another one of my stages of sports hero worship, and, to tell the truth, neither was I.