We are all fans. Every one of us has something or someone-a sports team, a rock band, a movie star-we care about more deeply than we probably should. And we all engage in some fan behavior, whether it's as simple as keeping up with that rock band's career through the media, or as involved as following our favorite team to away games, dressing in team gear and hitching our own well being to the team's fortunes on the field. But why? What does being a fan mean to us? What does it do for us? This Pats Year answers those questions by taking a look at fans in action. The author, a native New Englander and lifelong football fan, spent game days with fans of the New England Patriots during the team's 2002 post-championship season. He recalls four months of Sundays in self-contained narratives that come together to create a vivid picture of not just the Patriots faithful but of fans everywhere. The game-day essays present Patriots fans at their best and their worst, showing them as quixotic and mercurial, proud and steadfast, nervous and glum, jovial and celebratory. And the epilogue to this passionate book is the author's exploration of how the Patriots' 2003 season-one that made them Super Bowl contenders-caught its fans by surprise, putting them through a series of wildly varying emotions that seemed to bring them full circle from 2001. This Pats Year offers a fun and engaging look at what it is to be a fan-and does so in a manner that does not require a fan's involv