Fan goes online to find his team

The Los Angeles Dodgers are Jason Spires' favorite pro baseball team.

Spires' favorite pro basketball team? The Los Angeles Lakers.

His favorite college team? Alabama.

The 2001 Brooks High School graduate easily names off those favorites and can recite statistic after statistic about each. An avid sports fan, he lives and dies with every game his teams play.

But there is a void in Spires' sports-fan life.

“I've never really had an NFL team I pulled for,” he said. “I've always been just a casual observer.”

So Spires, who today is a 26-year-old accountant living in Birmingham, decided it's time to choose one as his favorite. And he's found a unique way to select from the 32 candidates.

Spires has a Web site, singlewhitefan.com, that's sort of an online personal ad.

The site states he's a single, white fan seeking a National Football League team. Teams and their fans can make their pitch throughout football season, and Spires hopes to decide by the Feb. 7 Super Bowl.

The results have floored him: Literally thousands of fans have voted for their team in a poll on the site. Several teams mailed keepsakes and letters asking him to select them. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the site landed Spires an interview on ESPN's program, “First Take.”

“When I started the site up, it was as much for me and maybe a few friends to track it for fun,” he said. “The fact that anybody would want to read it was a surprise to me.

“As time has been going along, I started getting more interested myself, just wanting to know more and more about the teams. It makes me want to update it more and I enjoy getting e-mail from people and seeing what they have to say.”

His father, Killen resident Frank Spires, enjoys following his son's Web site.

Spires said his son always has been adventurous and sticks with something when he sets his mind to it. Jason Spires runs full marathons. He is the first child in the family to go away to college — he graduated from the University of Alabama.

“He's had a lot of fun,” Frank Spires said. “Jason has always been one who kind of lives on the edge a little bit, so it never really surprises us when we hear about things like this happening.”

He said the NFL team his son adopts will have a dedicated fan.

“Anything he approaches, he approaches very seriously,” Frank Spires said. “Anything he approaches, he has a purpose, and at the end of the day, his purpose with this site is to pick an NFL team.”

Jason Spires is the type of fan who takes sports seriously, his father said. He recalls his son going to Walmart two years ago after the Lakers lost in the NBA Finals.

“He was just walking around for two hours in Walmart,” Frank Spires said. “So, he's always been pretty intense. I've had to call him when his teams lose and remind him it's just a game.”

Jason Spires enjoys the online interaction with fans. One thing that surprised him is fans of teams that are perennial losers have written posts warning him not to choose their team, so he doesn't have to suffer, as well.

“They say, ‘whatever you do, don't do what I'm doing, you won't be happy',” he said.

He regularly updates his Web site, which got its title as a play on the “single white female” ads. The updates include lists of gifts from teams.

The Green Bay Packers, for example, gave a package that includes a letter from the team, “G Force Unleashed” flag, team photo, postcard of Lambeau Field, logo stickers, magnetic schedule, pocket schedule, temporary Packers tattoo and fan-club brochure.

The selection process is fun, but Jason Spires stresses he'll be a true fan of the team he selects.

“I'm using this time to make a good choice, because I'm planning to be serious about supporting them,” he said. “When I make a decision, 20, 30 and 40 years down the road it'll still be making a big impact on my life.

“I could have emotional damage years from now if I pick the wrong team. I don't want to have to be the fan in 20 years telling someone else ‘Don't pick my team, you'll regret it.' ”

Spires hasn't hinted about a favorite. He is considering whittling the list to about eight or 10 teams during the playoffs.

“I'm thinking about getting it down to one team from each division and a couple of wild cards, then going into a playoff format and deciding from there.”

For now, he's just amazed by ESPN's interest. Jason Spires said the network sent him an e-mail titled “ESPN First Take is following you.”

“I opened it, and they said they wanted me on the show,” he said. “I sat there trying to figure out who was playing a trick on me. But I called them up, and it was unbelievable. I thought it was a good experience. I was pretty nervous going into it.”

The interview can be seen on Spires' Web site.

His father was floored when Jason Spires told him about the interview request.

“We have a good friend at our church who, when this first came out, said this thing will be on ESPN by December, and we all laughed about it,” Frank Spires said. “Now we kid him about being a prophet.”

Frank Spires is curious which team his son chooses. Like thousands of others, he continues to log on to singlewhitefan.com for updates. “He seems to be approaching it from the right way of having fun with it, but still is determined to accomplish this goal.”

Bernie Delinski can be reached at 740-5739 or bernie.delinski@TimesDaily.com.