I'm from Virginia, born and raised. Just northeast of Tennessee Vols country, and just southwest of VT country. I get this question all the **** time.
My first answer is to tell them the truth. I've been a fan since way back, and the first game I vividly remember watching was (believe it or not) the Hail Flutie game. I was only 3 years old at the time, so a lot of it at that age is "I like the colors, I like the mascot, palm trees! Never been to the beach...that's awesome."...but, from that day on, even though the Canes lost that game--anytime Miami was on TV in Virginia playing anything, I was watching.
As I started learning about football, watching a ton of NFL and College games with my parents on TV including Canes games...I started to form my own opinions on how I liked a football team to play. Miami just fit me and what I liked to watch. I followed the players through the good (which there was a lot) and the bad (which there was a good bit of too).
I didn't fully start to understand what Miami was all about until probation came down, to be honest. I started being able to admire what they had done in the 80's in my early teens, and stuck with them thru probation. When probation hit is when VT started getting better and better under Beamer, and that also piqued my interest as this team just a few hours up the road from me was playing my favorite team. That made me follow Miami even more than before.
So...by the time I graduated HS in 1999, I had been a pretty good student, and applied to go to school at Miami. I was accepted, and even had a 50% academic scholarship offer to go there. BUT--I had no clue how much it was to go to Miami. I didn't exactly come from a well-off family, so that wasn't going to be a reality. I went to college locally, and enjoyed the late 90's/early 2000's glory times from afar. I celebrated when Vilma knocked that Nebraska TE senseless from my bedroom, and cried in the same spot when McGahee's knee got taken out by that punk-*** Will Smith from tOSU.
I wasn't able to go to a Canes game until 2005, and that was a big game for us: VT in Blacksburg. I had hooked up a ticket thru a guy I met on one of the Canes message boards, and tailgated my *** off from Noon until kickoff. Had a drunk VT sorority chick try to throw a beer at me as she yelled "Fvck Miami!" on the way in and I batted it back into her face...**** she was ****ed! Made it into the stadium sober enough to take it all in. They were ranked 3rd, we were ranked 5th. Big ballgame. We won that one 27-7, and I loved every second of it...even Kirby Freeman's relief appearance which was probably the best he played as a Cane when Wright went down in the 2nd quarter for a few drives.
I got back to the tailgating lot off of Prices Fork Dr, and had celebrated with my newfound Canes family that I never knew I had until that day. VT fans were passing the lot cussing us out, yelling "Go back to Miami!!!". I told them..."Fvck you!!! I'm a Cane, and I'm from Virginia bytch!!!"...and that's all that I really needed to say to them.
