BY SANDE SNEAD

When Virginia Tech fell to James Madison University 21 to 16 on Sept. 11, JMU graduate Sarah Marshall was crushed by the defeat.

Even though Marshall graduated from JMU in 1983, she has been a Tech devotee for as long as she can remember.

“I was devastated by the (Hokie’s) loss to JMU, yet extremely happy for them (JMU) too. I felt bad walking out of Lane Stadium all hang dog,” Marshall said. “This was the biggest victory in JMU history, and Madison played with so much heart. They wanted that game so badly.”

Marshall was torn because she grew up in Blacksburg. Her father got his undergraduate and master’s degree at Tech and was a professor there for 42 years.

Marshall is such a Tech fanatic that when she and her fiance set the date for their wedding – Sept. 25, 2010 — the first thing they checked was the Hokie home game schedule.

College football is played by 22 men on a field but the stadium stands are full  of women like Marshall. Thousands of Virginia women are avid sports fans.

A 2009 ESPN study on sports viewership indicates that while more men than women watch sports at certain points in their lives women become very interested in watching sports.

Sports viewing habits begin to increase for women after they turn 35 as they watch games more often with male friends, spouses and families, according to the study.

“I think that as attitudes about sports evolve, more and more women will become sports fans,” said Katie O’Connell, a junior at JMU who blogged recently about being a huge sports fan.

We’ve become a nation of fans with strong allegiance to the teams we cheer for each week. As women interest in sports grows, they are just as likely as men to live up to being a sports fanatic  in every sense of the word.

“You have the stereotype of a man who jumps up when his team is about to score, and swears when they lose, and gets angry and upset, and I am the same as that,” O’Connell said. “When the opposing team scores on mine, I swear and stomp my feet and feel just as furious as a man would.”

What drives fans to put so much energy and passion into cheering for their chosen sports teams?

“It’s our intrapyschic needs being projected onto a screen,” said Dr. Michael Smith, a Midlothian psychiatrist. “Our basic needs to succeed, have power, feel important and respected are often projected onto our sports teams.”

Smith said being the “fan” in “fanatical” is O.K. as long as it’s kept in perspective with the rest of your life.

“It’s only a bad thing when people take it too far and are overly attached to their team or the outcome. If they feel like when their team loses that their entire life fortune goes up in smoke or when their team wins, a pot of gold has come their way, then, I would suggest that they have some basic needs that may not being met in their own lives.”

If taken too far, fans  could fall victim to an extreme case of basking in reflected glory or BIRGing, a phenomenon identified by social psychologists.

BIRGing was examined in a 1976 study that showed fervent fans’ self-esteem rises and falls with a game’s outcome, with losses affecting their optimism about everything from getting a date to winning at darts.

But what is a game of football, basketball or soccer without cheering fans?

In hopes of creating stronger fan bases while generating school spirit, many colleges hold spirit marches and pep rallies.

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Longwood women’s associate head soccer coach Steve Brdarski said he noticed that students on campus were wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts from the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech instead of sporting their college’s school colors.

He decided to infuse some school spirit into the Farmville institution.

Brdarski, Ben Brittain, Student Government Association president and Stacey Wilkerson, who’s in charge of “New Lancer Days” planned the GAME event.

About 1,300 people gathered at a pep rally before the first home soccer game against University of Richmond. They were given blue and white Longwood Lancer scarves.

Then the crowd hiked the one and ½-miles from the rally to the stadium.

“It was just so cool to see everybody marching and coming together to support the soccer team,” said Samantha Chuchul, a Longwood peer mentor. “It made me feel really good.”

Although Longwood fell to the University of Richmond during that first game, the school spirit was palatable.

“Part of the reason for the event was for new students to get excited about Longwood,” said Chuchul, who is a junior.

Similar to Marshall at the JMU-Tech game, LaTia Harris is regularly torn between two schools.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Virginia Union University in 2008 and will get her graduate degree from Virginia State University in 2011.

When the two archrivals go head to head, she really doesn’t know which one to root for.

“I had great school spirit at VUU and brought that same enthusiasm over to VSU,” she said.

A sports management major, Harris attends games like it’s her job. And oftentimes, it is part of her course requirements.

“I love basketball the most, and being in the crowd yelling and feeling like the team hears you,” she said. “I like being the biggest motivator I can and feeling like I’m on fire and so the team is on fire too.”

Harris said she doesn’t get upset if her team loses.

“I know we’ve got it next time,” she said. “We learn from our mistakes, but we can’t win every game. It’s hard if you have an undefeated season and you lose the last game, but I think you have to take that as a learning lesson. It doesn’t dampen my spirit though.”

Sarah Marshall’s Virginia Tech roots run so deep in fact, that she has written a book, “Learning Football with the Hokie Bird,” published by gamedaypublications.com. The book is geared towards children 4-9 years old and is a primer on football and the fundamentals of the game.

“As a child, I learned about the game by listening and watching, but I’ve heard so many adults say that they didn’t understand the nuances of the game, so I’ve put together this fun book that tells that story.”

Other books are being developed as well including one featuring Marshall’s alma mater, “Learning Football with the Duke Dog.” Go to gamedaypublications.com to order.

This first ran in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.