Why You're A Fan: open thread (and chance to win!)

Welcome to the refreshed Roll Bama Roll! To celebrate the new look and feel of our sports communities, we’re sharing stories of how and why we became fans of our favorite teams. If you’d like to share your story, head over to the FanPosts to write your own post. Each FanPost will be entered into a drawing to win a $500 Fanatics gift card. We’re collecting all of the stories here and featuring the best ones across our network as well. Come Fan With Us!

SBNation is, as you've noticed, doing a cosmetic relaunch. As such, they've asked all of us to write a "why we're a fan" post. Ordinarily we at RBR do this anyway as part of an "introduce yourself" thread we publish every weekend before the season starts. And, as the season starts, and we see more new faces, we will do that again.

However, this is your opportunity to kick-start the Fanposts again. Feel free to comment here on why you're a fan, but also make sure to expand and drop one over on the Fanposts hub. All contributors there are eligible to win $500 worth of cool stuff.

My story is a simple one: Though I was long a fan (and I'm not sharing that in the middle of May and wasting some good #content,) I have become a far greater fan the past three days, and that is Athletic Director Greg Byrne's doing.

There were systemic issues with the baseball program; he listened; he read everyone's responses; and he acted. That is the most responsive and thoughtful an administrator -- at any level, anywhere -- has ever been. That it was at my alma mater has renewed my fandom. Sometimes renewing the faith is much more important than gaining it to begin with...ask any preacher.

Anyway, share below and pop over to the Fanposts section to enter to win some #swag.

The JP will be up shortly. Roll Tide