The Midwest Raider Fan

As you may have gathered from previous articles, I am from the midwest. More specifically, the great state of South Dakota. Living here in a city that is over 1800 miles from Oakland, you'd be suprised how many Raider's fans there are. I went to lunch the other day and ate at Taco Bell, the guy who took my order asked if I was ready for the NFL season to begin and then added that he couldn't wait to see how the Raiders were going to do. Stories like this just reinforce the argument I made in The Raider "Nation".

Raider Cheif Executive Amy Trask even has ties to the great state of South Dakota. The following paragraph is taken from this article:

What energizes her is the fans. "Simply put, we have the best (absolutely, positively, without a doubt the best) fans in all of sports," she says. And on any given Sunday, when the Raiders are on the road, Trask and her husband, Rob, make the tail-gate circuit. They walk the stadium parking lot meeting fans. "The
Raider Nation is vast," she says proudly, adding there's a fan base from South Dakota that travels all the way to Denver to see Oakland play. Then there's the island contingency. "We have an enormous following in Hawaii. All over the islands, you find Raider gear and Raider fans," she says. Trask laughs that the team's websites--Raiders.com and Raidersenespanol.com get hits from every continent on earth except, possibly, Antarctica.

Dakota fans hold a special place in Trask's heart. Her husband, Rob, is from what she calls "The great state of South Dakota." "I'll tell you, for a state with a population of well under a million, there are a lot of impressive people who come from there," she says.

I'll admit that I haven't been to Denver to see a game but I have travelled to Kansas City. It is a lot of fun watching the Raiders play in Arrowhead. The games are always close and the fans in KC aren't too bad. In the morning prior to the game, the local radio shows are filled with calls of people bashing the Raiders. It is a great experience and I would definitely reccomend it to any Raider fans in the midwest.

Another connection between the Raiders and South Dakota is Lyle Alzado. He attended Yankton College in Yankton, South Dakota. He played his rookie season with Denver and then returned to Yankton College to get his college degree. He was known for his steroid use but had a very productive NFL career and earned himself a Super Bowl ring with the Raiders.

I know this post seems more like I'm bragging up my home state but it does show how far the Raider Nation truly extends.