Die-hard Steelers fans more emotional after loss

When quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw his final incomplete pass last night and sealed the… When quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw his final incomplete pass last night and sealed the Packers’ 31-25 victory over the Steelers, it wasn’t just the hopes of several dozen teammates that died — the hopes of the Steel City residents died too.

Thousands of fans watched as their team lost the biggest game of the year. Thousands more celebrated as the Green Bay Packers took home their first Super Bowl win in more than a decade. For many fans, this annual match-up is more than a game of numbers — some viewers tie their happiness to the outcome.

Aimee Kimball, the director of mental training for UPMC Sports Medicine, said there is something more to the psychology of fandom than the excitement over a win or loss.

The Pitt doctor, who often works with athletes to improve their mental performance, said that generally there are two different types of fans — those who view sports as a social activity and are less likely to be affected by their team’s performance, and the truly die-hard fans.

A loss might be harder on die-hard fans than on those who view sports as a social activity. By putting their emotions in the hands of athletes, many fans set themselves up for disappointment when they find that they can’t control the outcome, Kimball said.

“We sit here and we wave our Terrible Towels hoping to affect the outcome of the game some way,” she said. ”But the reality is that it doesn’t make that much of a difference, yet someone who is highly invested in the team wants to believe that in some way they are affecting the team.”

Kimball likened the mannerisms of die-hard fans to a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, saying that the ritualistic game day behaviors of many fans remain the same season after season, from wearing the same jersey every game to insisting everyone remain quiet during certain plays.

These behaviors are somewhat irrational, Kimball said, given that they ultimately don’t have an effect on the outcome of the game. One thing Kimball has noticed about fans is the way they associate themselves with the team differently after a win or a loss.

For example, when the team wins, fans will say “we won,” but if the team loses, fans will say, “they lost.” It’s the association with a winning team that often keeps fans coming back.

One such die-hard fan is Devon Pleasant, a Pitt housekeeper who said he has been a fan of the Steelers since he was a child.

For Pleasant, being a Steelers fan means having the expectation that the team will win every game, and when the team loses, especially in big games like the Super Bowl, Pleasant said he feels “crushed” — like the team has let him down.

“I’m happy for the whole week when the Steelers win and very angry for that night when they lose,” he said.

The way Kenneth Boas, a professor of sports literature at Pitt, sees it, this association with a team is a distraction from everyday life.

“It’s easier in some ways to put your life in other people’s hands. In terms of sports, we love the game and we cheer our home team on and when we lose we take it very hard, but that’s a much easier blow to take, and one that’s fairly easy to recover from,” he said.

But for the most part, fans seem to understand the nature of the game, which, as Boas puts it, has a “built in mechanism” to help fans get over a loss.

There’s always the promise of the next game, and it’s long been the trope of a defeated fan to say, “we’ll get ’em next year.”

“In the long run, it’s not going to really make that much difference. Of course they’ll be very disappointed if they lose and very happy if they win,” Boas said. “But I think most sports fans understand the nature of the game and that winning and losing is part of it and there’s a built-in acceptance of that reality.”