thelma

Fans of sport are always looking for something to rally behind. A player’s quirk, a rally primate, a song — teams are eager to find a little gag that their fans can really get into.

One such “gag” is facial hair. It seems like every year there is a fan base claiming that you need to, as they say, “Fear the Beard.” The beards of their players, they assert, are something you should be wary of, something that may be of harm to your players, and maybe even you.

While it’s fun to tell others to “fear the beard,” it means less and less every time a new fan base picks up the rhyme and applies it to their own follically-gifted player(s). Even more so, and what is potentially more problematic, is that I suspect — I “fear” that many fan bases do not realize they are not the original arbiter of this oft-used phrase.

So in an attempt to retire “beard fear” for good, let’s do a quick rundown of every team that has tried to get us to fear one or multiple beards.