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| Home teams (away from home) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Martin Cizmar, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| November 29, 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Click here to view a slideshow of football fans at local bars. Count Mike Withrow among them. Take our interactive quiz and find out what kind of football fan you are. The 38-year-old tattooist from Tempe arrived at Mabel Murphy’s in Scottsdale at 9 a.m. to claim a spot in front of the biggest screen showing his Green Bay Packers take on their hated rivals from Minnesota, the Vikings. As is his Sunday ritual, he was on his third beer by 11 a.m. when the games start in the Valley. That’s 1 p.m. back east. Around him people dressed in green and gold also sip a breakfast of hops and barley. “There’s a pork chop in every bottle,” Withrow says, hoisting his Bud Light in the air. “That’s what they say.” The early hour is a small inconvenience for a die-hard football fan, he says. “We live the Packers,” he says. “Packers fans are family. You don’t even have to know them, they’re family.” Across the East Valley, people gather like this every week, wearing team colors, eating foods you probably won’t find at a respectable Sunday brunch and telling stories about the Motherland. While other people might head to church or wash their cars, die-hard football fans sit in dark rooms eating onion rings and cursing at television screens. It’s a Midwest thing, says Lori Nelson of Scottsdale, watching the Packers game with her husband, Rick. “I’m from California and we didn’t do anything like this.” You can move a Midwesterner out to Arizona for a job or a sunny place to play golf, she says, but you can’t get them to give up such a cherished tradition. “It’s their religion,” she says. Around the corner, another congregation meets at the Sugar Shack. Cliff Bender, 25, and Dave McGuirk, 26, recently moved to Scottsdale from Pittsburgh to take gigs selling refrigeration equipment. They went online to find places to watch their beloved Steelers. No one’s from the Valley, says Bender — they move here, and when they do, they want a place to watch their hometown team. “Two thousand miles away, it feels like you’re still at home,” he says. Jenn Jarzynka, 26, comes for the sport, but also for the camaraderie. She likes talking about her favorite Pittsburgh haunts with other transplants and having something to chat about with folks back home. “Football is a way of life in Pittsburgh, and I could not imagine it not being with me wherever I live,” Jarzynka says. “It’s a tie to home, something you can talk about with people back in Pittsburgh. They’re watching the same game we are.” Down in Tempe, the crowd at Hail Mary’s is chanting “Steelers suck!” as the Cleveland Browns’ lead over their Rust Belt rivals starts to slip. The game quiets down and conversation turns to Cleveland: Wild nights spent at bars in the Flats, the Great Blizzard of 1978, the way nobody messed with the unions. Sean “Mullet” Millet and Chad “Chadillac” Cawthow, both 24, moved to Tempe from Cleveland and enjoy the high school reunion-like atmosphere of Sundays at the bar. “Everyone here’s from Cleveland,” says Millet. Well, almost everyone. The Browns Backers club president, Anthony Garrison, has lived in Arizona since he was in grade school. “It’s like being down at the VFW. Everyone has stories, everyone talks, 'I’m from here, I used to eat at this place and that place,’ ” he says. Unlike almost everyone else, Garrison doesn’t have those ties. But the Browns bind him to the other people here, he says. “I have stories, it’s just my stories are short,” he says. “But I love the Browns.” That’s how they all are Bostonians, loud? Texans, arrogant? New Yorkers, jaded? Fans of most NFL teams have a certain stereotype — or so say bartenders at East Valley sports bars. New England Patriots fans are loud, says Renee Bogar, who owns Hail Mary’s, a Cleveland Browns bar in Tempe. “They will talk during the entire game,” she says. “They’re just more verbose than any other fans I encounter.” San Diego Charger’s fans, on the other hand, are mellow, says Danny Piacquadio, co-owner of Harold’s Cave Creek Corral, a Pittsburgh Steelers bar. “They’re lousy, lousy fans,” he says. “They’re typical California people — all they care about is sand and surf.” Piacquadio has similar disdain for fellow Pennsylvanians who follow the Philadelphia Eagles. “That’s the bad part of the state,” he says. “They threw snowballs at Santa Claus.” Piacquadio has much more respect for the Green Bay Packers. “They’re probably the third-best fans in the league,” he says (only the Steelers and the Cleveland Browns are ahead of the Pack, in his book). Cody Wood, a bartender at CK’s Grill & Tavern in Ahwatukee Foothills, doesn’t agree: “I really won’t comment on them, other than they wear cheese on their heads.” Wood likes Tennessee Titans fans: “They all have that Tennessee accent and they like to drink whiskey.” Denver Broncos fans are similarly popular. They’re gentleman, says Bogar. “They’re just pretty good all-around people.” Same with Bears fans. “They’re just funny,” she says. Wood likes Bears fans too, though “I could do without all the chanting, I’m not a fan of the chanting.” Kansas City Chiefs fans are nice, Bogar says, though they seem to be a little uninformed. Just like Dallas Cowboys fans who’ve never set foot in Texas, they don’t know a lot about their team. “A lot of Chiefs fans can’t tell me if it’s Kansas City, Missouri, or Kansas City, Kansas.” Then there’s fans of the Oakland Raiders, whom no one seems to like, but no one wants to talk about. “They’re loons,” says Piacquadio. “I don’t want to say anything for fear of my life.” Sports bars all over the East Valley cater to certain teams. Here are a few picks: CHICAGO BEARS • Payton’s Place (Ahwatukee Foothills), 15410 S. Mountain Parkway, Suite 109, Phoenix, (480) 759-4034 CLEVELAND BROWNS • Hail Mary’s, 1402 S. Priest Drive, Tempe, (480) 377-8971 or hailmarysonline.com • Indigo Joe’s, 1939 E. Baseline Road, Suite 103, Gilbert, (480) 545-5637 or indigojoes.com GREEN BAY PACKERS • Mabel Murphy’s, 7018 E. Main St., Scottsdale, (480) 946-0363 or mabelmurphys.com KANSAS CITY CHIEFS • Sluggo’s Sports Grill, 161 N. Centennial Way, Mesa, (480) 844-8448 or sluggosgrill.com PITTSBURGH STEELERS • Sugar Shack, 6830 E. Fifth Ave., Scottsdale, (480) 947-3447 • Harold’s Cave Creek Corral, 6895 E. Cave Creek Road, (480) 488-1906 or haroldscorral.com CARDINALS VS. THE BROWNS •The Arizona Cardinals play the Cleveland Browns beginning 2:05 p.m. Sunday at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. •If you want to party like a Browns fan before the game, check out the pre-game party Saturday starting at 5 p.m. at Hail Mary’s in Tempe. Tickets, $15 at the door. •If you’re headed to the game, you’ll find the two local Browns Backers clubs tailgating in the Brown Lot outside the stadium. Contact Martin Cizmar by email, or phone (480) 898-5695 |
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