Yuku free message boards

To those that say they don't get the East/West thing....it's not really that hard to understand. It's not much different than rooting for all Big ten schools come Bowl time, or rooting for a small Pennsylvania little league team against the Japanese team. It validates that your conference or your region or your country are as good as you believe (and maybe have boasted). This has been described as Regional Pride or National Pride. You may not have it but it is by no means uncommon. Suppose your team plays in a conference (the OK conference for example) that fans of another team (and another conference) have been deriding as a weak conference that can't win the big one for years. If your team gets eliminated, it's not uncommon to root for the remaining conference team if only to shut-up the naysayers. Given that local WM teams (prior to the last 10 years) had not had much recognition as state powers and had listened to years of "second rate" criticism, it's not hard to understand the regional pride thing.

Well Searn, in some ways the world should be more like you because regional and national pride, both in sports, and especially outside of sports, has historically led to some very ugly incidents. But that aside...

Let me ask you....would you root for almost any Michigan HS against an Ohio HS especially given the amount of rhetoric involving the superiority of Ohio HSF. If so, that's regional pride.

In answer to your statement about rooting for Iowa State or Ball State, you're right, there is a limit line. I think there has to be some kind of connection. Big Ten teams are direct opponents (a connection). OK Conference foes...another connection. The West Michigan "connection"...well, the area is geographically close and is often referred to as one collective place by the single television networks out of Grand Rapids that serve Muskegon and Ottawa counties as well. Our only Minor League Baseball team is called the WEST MICHIGAN Whitecaps. My personal opinion is that this WM regional pride area is limited to Kent, Muskegon, Ottawa County as we have grown up thinking of this triangle as one big place.

St. Joe and Traverse City are certainly "west" michigan (you can't get further west) but not many think of them as such, at least in the present context.

Again, as moderator of this forum, you're better off being the way you are