Niners Nation After Dark: We Versus They In Professional And Collegiate Sports

Welcome back to Niners Nation After Dark where NCAA, NIT, CBI, and CIT basketball all excites us. I know some folks don't like when we have any sort of discussion about anything other than football, but given the level of community we have here, I enjoy discussion other topics. I'll never overwhelm folks with these topics because we are a football site, but we're also a community so a little off-topic discussion is fine in my opinion.

I did have a specific topic in mind after a discussion I was involved in earlier today. Some of the other site editors started up an internal discussion about the use of the pronouns "We" and "They." The issue when it is appropriate for people to refer to sports teams as we and they. I know people who get all sorts of fired up when a fan refers to their team as "We." Personally, I think people can refer to them however they want. I generally prefer to use they, but if you have committed a lot to a team who's to stop you from saying we?

I do have one exception to the we versus they rule. My undergrad's basketball team (American University) is a we for me. I sometimes switch to they, but I look at college as a perfect example of being a part of the team in some sense. The team represents the university in one sense and you represent the university out in the real world in another sense. Maybe you're not playing basketball, but you're both representatives so "We" is appropriate.

As I mentioned above, I'm not here to judge anybody's use of pronouns. I'm just curious how people view the We versus They discussion. Do you think it even really matters?