If your not from WNY how'd you start to root for the Bills?

[goldenboy81]

Born in Syracuse, both parents born and raised in Buffalo..

Entire family on both sides are diehard Bills fans...

Mom raised us boys to be one and now we are crazy for this team..Go Bills

[dwight in philly]

When my kids get older, I am not sure what I am going to do. We live in steelers country now obviously and so I feel kinda bad forcing the Bills on them. For me, growing up in WNY, it made sense. But not sure I want them to miss out on being a fan of the local team.

well.. i will offer an opinion. i have two young granddaughters that were born and being raised in philly. they know nothing except the Buffalo Bills when it comes to watching football as a family or just in general. i realize and respect what your feelings are in relation to letting your offspring root for the local team.. just let nature take its course.. but you live in pittsburgh , enough said when it comes to football success..

Edited March 26, 2017 by dwight in philly

[ExWNYer]

Born and raised in Queens. My friends and I would go to Shea and watch Jet games. I liked them because of Namath (my father was born in Alabama) and I much preferred the AFL to the NFL.

 

When the Jets moved to New Jersey I didn't forgive them. I became a Bills Fan and never looked back.

 

Being a Bills Fan and a Crimson Tide Fan is really strange. As an Alabama Fan, you are an immediate member of a cult that wins. It's crazy. Sometimes they will be losing and you can just feel that they will come back. Then the other team makes one mistake and it's lights out.

 

I have been a Bills Fan for decades now. I've got to meet and know some of the best, nicest, and most knowledgeable fans in the country. Also, they are some of the funniest people on earth. Much of the humor is pain based.

 

I have no regrets. My daughters are Bills Fans and they are fighters, and loyal people. I guess the most weird thing is that I admit to feeling just a tad guilty after the Tide rolls over someone. Bills Fans deserve a team like this.

 

Let's just make the playoffs, OK?

 

We have a similar story. My mom was born and raised in Mobile, AL. My dad was born and raised in Dunkirk, NY and I spent my formative years (thru middle school) in WNY. From the time I was old enough to follow sports as a small boy in the late '60s/early '70s, I have been a diehard Bills & Crimson Tide fan. I grew up cheering for OJ, Dennis Shaw, Marlin Briscoe, and Bear Bryant. It's a strange dichotomy being a Buffalo sports fan & an Alabama fan. Being an avid fan my whole life of lovable losers in the Bills, Sabres, & Mets, Alabama football (and VCU basketball) has been my oasis in the desert. Both of my teenage boys were born and bred in Virginia but are avid Bills fans, as well. I never forced it upon them but they just fell into it watching with me on the Sunday Ticket. Oddly (?), they both cheer for all of the same teams that I do (which I love!), especially my younger son who is a huge sports fan. Their first ever game at the Ralph was the first game of the Pegula era, which was very cool (although the Bills lost). I hope for their sake, more than my own, that they will be able to cheer for a fun & winning Bills (and Sabres) team soon.

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

well.. i will offer an opinion. i have two young granddaughters that were born and being raised in philly. they know nothing except the Buffalo Bills when it comes to watching football as a family or just in general. i realize and respect what your feelings are in relation to letting your offspring root for the local team.. just let nature take its course.. but you live in pittsburgh , enough said when it comes to football success..

Thanks for the advice!

[H2o]

I live in VA and my best friend was a Puerto Rican from NY. I adopted all NY teams because his family liked all NY teams. The Knicks, the Yankees, the Rangers, but I couldn't get with the Jets or the Giants for some reason. I chose the Bills. Been a fan ever since '87 when I was 10 years old.

[stuvian]

moved to Ontario from British Columbia when I was 19. I grew up rooting for the Raiders and Seahawks (and still do). A friend brought me to a Bills game on a bus tour package. Saw the Bills in their glory years versus Elway in his prime. That same season I went to the final home game where they clinched the division against the Jets. I was hooked. I convinced a few drinking buddies we should go in a season ticket package and we're still at it 13 years later. Bad football, great memories.

[LI_Bills]

moved to Ontario from British Columbia when I was 19. I grew up rooting for the Raiders and Seahawks (and still do). A friend brought me to a Bills game on a bus tour package. Saw the Bills in their glory years versus Elway in his prime. That same season I went to the final home game where they clinched the division against the Jets. I was hooked. I convinced a few drinking buddies we should go in a season ticket package and we're still at it 13 years later. Bad football, great memories.

 

Wasn't too long ago that the Raiders and Seahawks were division rivals.

[fansince88]

My best friend since 1984 was a Giants fan. He got me hooked on Football Sundays after church. My issue was this....3 NY teams and one in Ny while the other 2 were in Jersey. Around the spring od 88 we were talking FB and he said come on you have to be a GMen fan you are a NYorker and cron the Island. I told him He is a Giants Fan and a yankee fan.Im a Mets fan so I have to pick there opposits and hate the Jets so I told him Im a Bills fan. Have never lived the SB loss down but have never missed a game aired on TV since.

Also Mark Vader no kidding. Been to a Bills at Jets and 2 Bills games in Buffalo. Get that filled on the bucket list man. Nothing like it at the Ralph!! BTW we are undefeated when Im present! Go Bills

[somnus00]

Born and raised in Southern California. I was hesitant to respond here because I may have contributed to the Bills sorrows/curse... I became a fan on a day the Bills lost an ugly game.

 

I became a Bills fan on January 8, 1989. The AFC championship game vs the Bengals. The Bills had a bad game in a hostile environment against an "unstoppable" offense. But I saw them fighting and I felt that I could see signs of greatness in the team.

 

I was pulling for them in that game. And I've never stopped since then.

[Domdab99]

Good topic!

 

I grew up in North New Jersey, about 40 minute from NYC. When I was about 7 or 8, my parents got me a football helmet for Christmas - it was a Buffalo Bills helmet. I knew nothing about football, or even that the Giants and Jets were my local team, but I loved that helmet.

 

A year or two later, my parents got me a subscription to Football Digest - an old-time monthly that was awesome. The first cover I saw was of OJ and the offensive line....and the headline was something like: "Meet the Electric Company - the power that turns on the Juice."

 

And I was hooked.

 

In the 90s, I was living in L.A., and made the trek to a local Bill's Backers bar near Pomona every Saturday to watch the games. It was awesome,

 

Now I live in Vegas...and always subscribe to the DirecTV NFL package so I won't miss a game.

 

My favorite Bills' players will always be Joe Ferguson, Jerry Butler, and Lou Piccone.

 

[Another Fan]

having been born and raised in buffalo, i just want to say , this is one of the best threads i have ever read on here ! .. very cool.. insightful!

 

Cool, glad people liked this. Born and raised in Jersey myself.

[derweezy]

Live in Ontario, and a buddy of mine took me to a game about ten years ago... Had a blast and felt like I was part of something, loved the tailgate. After I few years of going to a game sitting in the same section getting to know the people I was hooked. We have had seasons for four years now, and just renewed.

 

Even though I live in southern Ontario, I never for a second wanted the team to be anywhere but Orchard Park, it's where the team belongs.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Best guess? I was a horrible person in a previous life.

Ed is that you!

 

(Not sure if you will get it, but some here will)

[707BillsFan]

My parents are from Buffalo, but I was born and raised in Northern California...but for a brief moment in time (early 70's), I lived in Buffalo after my parents got homesick. They apparently came to their senses and moved us back to NorCal shortly after their cross country move. We always had family back in Buffalo, so we visited often as a kid. My father was always a Bills fan, so I assume I just followed his lead. I never had any interest in the Raiders or 49ers (maybe a slight interest in the Raiders since they trained here in Santa Rosa while I was growing up). My earliest moment, recalling my Bills-fandom was watching the Bills coming back in beating the Raiders on MNF in the 70's (Ahmad Rashad's game winning TD). I was besides myself. I've been to a couple Bills games in Buffalo, but mainly games here along the west coast.

 

We somehow managed to send our oldest daughter across country to go to college, where she attends St John Fisher. It's great, she plays a fall sport so when we drop her off, Bills are still in training camp. Awesome experience!! With her going to college in Rochester, I'm still able to get back to WNY and Buffalo quite often.

[BigDingus]

I was 5, with my first game being the Redskins vs Bills Super Bowl. I lived in Northern Virginia, and all my family were Skins fans, yet I couldn't understand it. All I saw was ugly colors and a dumb looking logo. When I saw the Bills colors (what kid doesn't like Red, White & Blue?!) and the charging Buffalo logo, I fell in love!

From then on, I became obsessed with "the Buffaloes" as I called them for my first year of fandom, and my dad actually encouraged it. He had friends from work at an office in Buffalo, and had them send me boat loads of cool Bills memorabilia, football cards, etc. I learned every single thing about the team, each player, and the sport of football in that one year and never let up.

Sad thing is the last time the Bills made the playoffs I was 13.... I'm almost 31 now. How depressing is that? Still, since I was 17 and could drive I have only missed watching 4 Bills games in that time frame (I live in Texas now, so moved even further away).

Also, greetings to everyone here - I'm among the longtime Buffalo Bills Message Board users that found this place to migrate to. Hope to get to know you guys better in the coming weeks/months/years!

[ExiledInIllinois]

having been born and raised in buffalo, i just want to say , this is one of the best threads i have ever read on here ! .. very cool.. insightful!

Same here... Born @ Sister's Hospital, wife @ Mercy... She raised in Lackawanna, myself S.Cheektowaga/W.Seneca. We are disqualified, but my son was born here in NW Indiana and he's a Bills/Sabres fan!

 

Daughter now? I don't think she realizes that sports exist. But, yeah, pencil her in as a BFLo fan by default. Another one born in Munster (Lake County), Indiana.

 

LoL... The "BFLo Diaspora?"

Edited March 27, 2017 by ExiledInIllinois

[major]

They were on tv when I was a kid. I told my parents, "I'm going to cheer for them". Have stuck with them ever since.

[Talley56]

Grew up in MD and first got into football in the middle of the 1990 season when Buffalo was in the middle of it's first super bowl run. The Colts had left a long time ago and the idea of the Browns moving from Cleveland was nowhere near a possibility yet. I gravitated towards the Bills and stuck by them ever since. I do admittedly root for the Ravens but I am a Bills fan first and foremost.

[LABILLBACKER]

Grew up outside of LA mesmerized as a kid watching USC/UCLA football games. OJ was my hero as a kid and I vowed to follow whatever team drafts him. 48 years later my passion for this team goes way beyond Orenthal. I still find it surreal that I drove right past the murder scene early that morning, hours before news broke. Still have yet to go to a home game but it will get checked off my bucket list. Now I'm just a rabid & proud Bills Fan who's stuck with tons of worthless OJ memorabilia. I still have tons of friends ask me why I'm a Bills Fan and rather than go thru the whole OJ story, I simply say they're the most loyal fans in the world.....

[GunnerBill]

My Grandad was Polish and joined up as a 17 year old to fight the Nazi invasion in 1939. He was captured and sent to a POW camp. He and 4 others escaped one night and tried to make it to France. My grandad was the only one who did. He made it and was hidden in a cellar by the resistance until the end of the war at which point he found his way to England, met my nan and married her.

Fast forward 40 years and my grandad died just before I was born. My nan had promised him she would continue to go back and see his family if anything happened to him and in the early 1990s she was in Poland keeping that promise when she was struggling to reach something on a high shelf in a shop. An American brother and sister just happened to be in that shop at that time and offered to help. They got talking and struck up a friendship. That family was from Buffalo.

The man came over to England to visit a couple of times in the 90s and one time brought a huge Jim Kelly poster for me as a gift.... which spent the next 10 years rolled up in my wardrobe because I neither knew or cared who Jim Kelly was. I was a soccer nut and had no interest in American rugby.

We visited him in California (where he lives) in summer 2002 just before I went to University and watched a Bills pre season game on the TV. That was basically me hooked. For the next 3 years my Monday Night partying would end in time for me to get a pizza or a kebab and be home for halftime in the MNF when they would show the highlights from the other games that Sunday. The Bills, of course, would always seem to lose.

It was 2006 when I moved to London that I first started streaming each Bills game on a Sunday and I gave up with illegal streams and moved to NFL game pass 4 or 5 years later. I think I have missed 3 Bills games in 11 seasons since 2006 and at least one of those is because I was at Wembley for an international series game.

I have seen 2 winning seasons and zero playoff games.... it has been a lot of fun.

Edited March 27, 2017 by GunnerBill