[Promoted from the diaries.  Check out this awesome FanPost from Wizards (yes, that's his username) on how he became a Wizards fan.  -Jake]

This is mainly for my own record, but please feel free to take a gander.  It chronicles a boy who didn't have a hometown team growing up and realized it was time to make a commitment.

As a child, my family moved around a lot from job to job.  My father wasn't in the military so it was always odd answering the "why?" question because my father was a minister.  That brought many blank stares as they try to reconcile the two in their brains before they spoke.  Our family moved from Missouri (my birthplace) to Oklahoma to Ohio to Montana to Ohio to Delaware and finally to Maryland where I reside.  I eventually got used to all the moving and the questions, but that's a different story entirely. 

We're a very athletic family and everyone played their own sport and to be honest, we were all pretty good.  My father (before seminary) played baseball and soccer and could've gone to college with a full ride in either sport.  My mother was a fitness-phile and excelled in anything from aerobics (oh yeah!), spinning, running in races, to just about everything else.  My father brought up my brother and I in each of his sports so it was fitting when we both chose one of his two sports.  My brother took soccer (went on to play in college) and I took baseball (had a good career in high school and decided to stop there).  How does this fit in with basketball?  Just wait, I'm getting there.

Throughout my baseball career I learned through imitation.  I was an avid Cardinals fan since my father was from the area.  Looking at all the places we moved to, it was a bit hard to choose a favorite team from any of the other leagues.  We spent the most time in Montana and really, there is nothing there for miles all around.  We could've been big supporters of the Northwest teams, the Colorado teams, the Minnesota teams... but nothing seemed to stick.  Ohio teams were one hundred percent out of the question.  That is/was the worst state to live in for me.  Getting back on track, I learned by watching the pros.  I imitated their swings, their defensive positioning, how to read pitches, etc.  It brought me a well-rounded knowledge of the game.

Then we ended up moving to the east coast.  I loved baseball and that's really all I watched until I realized that the teams where I lived were not very good.  It first started out with the Orioles.  There could be essays written and published about how bad they are/were and can't get out of the bottom of the American League East and that created a bit of resentment in me because the Cardinals (still my team) wouldn't allow that kind of thing to happen to their city.  So after about ten years or so of local baseball mediocrity, I started looking for other sports to satisfy my local craving.

I naturally was drawn to basketball because when I was younger in Montana, John Stockton came to a town near me and had a basketball camp.  That's where I learned to shoot a basketball.  Fast forward some fifteen years and here I am watching Michael Jordan come back to the NBA with the Wizards.  I wasn't too involved in watching many games or keeping track of where MJ lead the team, but the Wizards were entertaining and unfortunately not too good.  My interest kept growing because I went to the University of Maryland and when the Wizards drafted Juan Dixon, I knew I'd be watching more games because I was invested in Juan (and Steve Blake).  However, it was the 2005-2006 season where the Wizards became a staple in my sports landscape. 

Following the team that year was exciting.  Everything from meeting the TV announcers (Steve and Phil) to watching young players develop, it was new and fresh to me.  The Wizards have again opened the doors of learning a sport for me as I started learning the angles, situational entry passes, floor spacing and even the very hard to understand illegal defense calls.  Well, I'm still working on that one.  Not only that, but the Wizards are a fun team to watch.  They play a precise Princeton style that can bog down occasionally, but when executed perfectly, it's a thing of beauty.

A couple years later, I got married and I started the long road of getting my wife to enjoy the game as much as I do.  We're not quite there, but we're close.  It also helps when the star on your team is good looking.  As the playoffs loom large, it will be great to stick it to a state I'm not very fond of and I'm proud to say I'm a Washington Wizards fan and will be no matter where I live.  Baseball will always hold a special place in my history, but I've moved on.  Basketball is where I'll be.

Thank you Washington for a great team!

-Formerly known as Craig, now Wizards.