A portfolio, a cool logo, and Sports Illustrated Kids: My Journey to Miami Heat Fandom
Since it is NBA Playoff season I decided my final blog should be about how I came to be a fan of the Miami Heat.
I became a Miami Heat fan in a very unconventional way at the age of 11. It was late summer 2007 and I was finally moving out of a shared bedroom with my little brother. I was moving into my dad’s old office. When I finally got all my stuff in I wanted to decorate and in order to do that I needed to move a stack of unused portfolios out of the way. When I went to move them one fell out of the pile. It was a portfolio that looked like a Shaq Miami Heat jersey.
I sat down with the portfolio and looked it over. It was black with red and orange accents and I really liked that the team was called the Heat. As a little kid I loved NASCAR and my favorite driver was Jeff Gordon and he drove a car covered in flames so it made sense that my next new favorite sports team followed the same style. We didn’t have a computer at my house at the time so I had no way to find out more info about the team. My family was all about high school and college hoops so I couldn’t ask about a pro team. I decided I would go through my school’s copies of Sports Illustrated Kids when the school year started and find out all I could about the Miami Heat.
I proudly carried my portfolio into Victory Road Christian Academy that August bent on finding out all about the Miami Heat. Every free second I had I spent in the school’s tiny library looking over magazines. I immediately became obsessed with the Heat in what I read. They were a team with a young, talented shooting guard named Dwayne Wade and a recently out of his prime Shaq. They also had legendary Gary “The Glove” Payton on their roster to finish out his NBA career. They were fresh off the 2006 NBA Championship and the photos of them in the magazines showed thrilled player playing in confetti and wearing gold covered material letting everyone know they were champions. I knew from day one that was the team for me.
Being a Miami fan has come with a share of ups and downs. In 2010 it was great because we got Lebron James who won two Championships as a member of the Heat. Times were good and we were the villains of the NBA. I got to go into high school everyday and brag about how my team was the best. My funniest/least favorite Heat memory was In 2014. After I graduated high school I was at Myrtle Beach with my family in July. I knew I wanted to buy a new hat because the one I was wearing was ratty and old. I stopped in a sporting goods store and bought a $45 Miami Heat hat and trashed my old one. Twenty minutes later Lebron announced he was going back to Cleveland and I had to walk around wearing a Heat hat all day and get jeered at by strangers.
It hasn’t always been easy being a Heat fan but at least it has been fun.
