Only the best

So those of you who know me may find I want to excel at every course I take. This is a bit more difficult in university now since there are always people who are better than you at everything. For example, I found out I got 20/20 on my lab mark in Chem 121. Pretty good right? Well, it turns out there are over 50 people who got 21/20. I don't know what they did to get the bonus mark but I'm pretty sure it wasn't worth the effort. Anyway, my need to be the best also crosses into other areas of life. Take for example professional sports. I am not implying I excel (or even aspire to excel) at any professional sport. As a fan, however, I only root for the best. Whether its Roger Federer in tennis, Tiger Woods in golf, Usain Bolt in track and field, Peyton Manning in football etc. Now, I did not arrive at these decisions consciously (at least I don't think so). There seems to be a certain period after initially following a sport that I discover a favorite player. Once discovered, I remain loyal to this player no matter how they do later on. I have created a theory called fan imprinting to describe this phenomena. Like imprinting in animals (new ducklings follow the first large moving object they see after hatching), fan imprinting involves a critical period during which a fan can be turned. For example, if I had started following tennis this year, my favorite tennis player would probably have been Rafael Nadal or if I had started following football last year, my favorite football player would probably have been Tom Brady etc. I'm also pretty sure fan imprinting doesn't have to occur exclusively with sports stars. I could also see it happening with celebrities, politicians, and musicians. However, the other critical aspect of fan imprinting is greatness. For example, if I had started following US politics in 2004, I would not have liked George Bush because he is not great or even mediocre. In fact,this is an instance in which fan imprinting may become negative, i.e. critic imprinting.