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Perspective

FOOTBALL SEASON IS OVER. The Super Bowl is just a memory. It’s time to reflect on the past season — not necessarily the Chargers’ playing, but their fans’ performance. Specifically: Why do grown men and women plunk down $40 to $70 for blue-and-gold Chargers jerseys with their favorite players’ names on the back? Sure, I like LaDainian Tomlinson. But I’m not wearing a shirt with his name on it. Isn’t that something kids do?

I asked my 10-year-old son, a far more dedicated Chargers fan than I, if he would wear a team jersey with one of the players’ names on it. “Okay, I like Rivers, but no, I wouldn’t wear the shirt,” he said. In fact, my son refuses to wear any team’s jersey, no matter the sport, no matter the player, because he thinks it looks “ridiculous.” If a 10-year-old boy who is supposed to be worshipping professional athletes shuns a shiny new jersey, why do adults wear them? And with such zeal?

It probably started with hip-hop. In the early 1990s, hip-hop culture made oversized athletic jerseys fashionable. That urban street cred diminished years ago, but non-rapping fans still wear them everywhere, from shopping malls to supermarkets to the office. Three out of four adults picking up a six-pack at Albertsons on game day wear a Chargers jersey. (Seriously. I sat in a parking lot one Sunday and counted.)

Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University and author of the book Generation Me (Free Press), says wearing the jersey satisfies a basic human need to belong.

“Thirty years ago, men in their 50s and 60s would have belonged to the Kiwanis Club, the Rotary Club, the VFW,” Twenge says. “That guy now thinks: ‘I can wear this jersey and I’m a member of a group of Chargers fans.’ ”

Nadav Goldschmied, a professor of psychology at the University of San Diego, agrees. He says the jersey-wearing phenomenon falls under “social identity theory,” which is psychological jargon for “We associate with groups to bolster our self-esteem.” If you are wearing a Chargers jersey and the Chargers beat another team, you feel good about yourself, even though you had nothing to do with it (and neither did your shirt). In fact, a 1992 study of the effect of a game’s outcome on fans’ self-esteem showed that following a win, fans feel really good about themselves. After a loss, they feel just the opposite, says Goldschmied.

I decided to ask the fans. I ventured to Seau’s on the day the Chargers played the Kansas City Chiefs. The bar was packed with jersey-wearing men and women. Sandy, a man in his 50s, told me he has been wearing Chargers jerseys for the past 30 years. His shirt bore the name Rivers.

“I’m partial to quarterbacks,” he said. “I wear one every Sunday, even on bye days, to show support. I used to wear them at work, too, and got a lot of positive comments, except from people who liked other teams.”

Armida and Reuben, a couple holding hands, wore Merriman and Gates jerseys, respectively. Reuben told me Gates “is a good player, and I like tight ends.”

A throng of attractive young women in shiny jerseys waited to buy drinks and flirted with similarly dressed men. It felt strangely like a frat party. I asked Michelle, a brunette inching her way toward the bar, why she wore hers.

“I’m a fan,” she said. “And that’s my sister and my cousin” (also clad in jerseys). Did it make them feel part of something bigger than themselves — part of the group their human natures compel them to seek out? Michelle laughed. “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “We’re just fans.”

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